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THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 



The Daredevil of the 
Army 



a 



Experiences as a "Buzzer 
and Despatch Rider 

BY 

CAPTAIN A. P. CORCORAN 




NEW YORK 

E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 

681 FIFTH AVENUE 



.0^ 



Copyright, M18, 
BY E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 



All Rights Reserved 



Printed in the United States of America 



JAN 16 1919 
5)CLA5J 13^0 



"Death, capture, accidents — any may overtake 
him on his road, but none may deter or terrify 
him. 'The daredevil' — that is the name he earned 
in the early days of the war, when General 
French credited him with the salvation of the 
British forces. And so I introduce him to you, 
reader — 'The Daredevil,' with his coadjutor, 
equally daring, the 'Buzzer,' the men who sup- 
ply the 'nerves' and much of the 'Nerve' of the 
modern fighting army." 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Foreword ix 

CHAPTER 

I. The Author Starts for Berlin on a 
Motor-cycle, and Finds Himself Pres- 
ently on the Marne 1 

II. The Author Assists at a Victory and 

Abandons His Bike for Better Things 44 

III. In Which the Telephone Proves Its 

Utility and Instability 82 

IV. In Which the Wireless Comes into Its 

Own on the British Front .... 125 



V. In Which the Author Repairs the Air- 
line and Retires for Repairs Him- 
self 



174 



FOREWORD 

Aptee the manner of a distinguished country- 
man, I speak my own prologue, not that I 
may the better explain the action of the coming 
piece, but rather that I may tell the reason of 
its being. 

"I learned, " wrote Sir John French, concern- 
ing activities round Mons, "that General Lan- 
rezac was retreating on my right, that at least 
three German corps were moving against our 
front and another German corps trying to turn 
our left wing. Whereupon it was decided to 
fallback." 

"I learned l" 

Suppose he had not learned. Suppose, that 
relying on French support, he had stood at 
Mons with his 75,000 men and 250 guns to face 
a victorious army of at least 200,000. Suppose 
he had defied von Kluck, quite unaware that 
von Buelow, also victorious, was threatening 
his flank. Suppose it, and you are supposing 
the annihilation of the British Army due to 

ix 



x FOREWORD 

the failure of its Motor Cycle Despatch Corps. 

"I learned," "information reached me" — 
the public reads the words every day, never 
once pausing to consider what they signify. 
* ' The news reached me ! ' ' 

How? 

Before the eyes of the initiated rises the 
picture of the despatch rider, tissue paper 
strapped to his finger, revolver strapped to his 
waist, scurrying at his sixty-odd miles an hour 
over a shell-shot and often enemy-infested high- 
way. 

The Motor Cycle Despatch Corps belongs to 
that branch of the British Service which is 
known as the Signal Section of the Royal Engi- 
neers. Metaphorically and very happily this 
branch has been named the "nerves of the mod- 
ern army." They supply the channels through 
which the brain of the command communicates 
its orders to the main body. Block those chan- 
nels : disconnect the mind from any single mem- 
ber. Immediately that member becomes par- 
alytic, so to speak, unable to move, or at least 
to make its movements articulate with those of 
the other members. 



FOREWORD xi 

Now suppose this huge body extended over 
a surface of some fifty miles. Suppose it at 
rest, as we shall see it later in our narrative, 
when the armies had settled down to the trench 
deadlock. An elaborate nervous system com- 
posed of some thousand of telephone cables, 
telegraph lines, wireless aerials and the hun- 
dred other minor signalling apparatus, keep all 
its parts in intimate intercommunication. Radi- 
ating over the whole line, they all issue from 
a single point — General Headquarters, the seat 
of army authority. Where is the fighting most 
stubborn, the casualties most severe, the sup- 
plies most scarce, the men most exhausted? A 
quivering nerve tells the tale of the strength or 
weakness of each individual member, and the 
brain issues its orders accordingly. 

A comparatively easy matter is this main- 
tenance of the nervous system when the armies 
are, comparatively speaking, at rest., 

But put the great body in continuous move- 
ment, as it was in the retreat from Mons, or in 
the advance after the Marne, or in the swift 
sweep forward from the Somme, or falling back 
again surely but slowly, as it was in the great 



2di FOREWORD 

spring drive of 1918. Immediately that elabo- 
rate system of cable and aerial communication 
collapses more or less according to the speed 
of the movement and the effectiveness of enemy 
fire. Individual effort, of course, is exerted to 
keep it intact. But it is a shaky system at best, 
ever on the verge of sudden collapse. And yet 
now above all times such a system is essential, 
if the success of the advance or retreat is to be 
maintained. For if the body advances a foot 
on one section of the line, while the other foot 
remains in its old position, at once the stability 
of the whole body is threatened. Either the 
first foot must be withdrawn or it must re- 
ceive adequate support. Else it will be cut off 
or become paralysed. 

" Information reached me," writes French 
concerning the battle of the Aisne, '"that the 
enemy had obtained a footing between the First 
and Second Army Corps and threatened to cut 
off communications. General Haig was hard 
pressed and had no reserve in hand. I placed 
a cavalry division at his disposal, part of which 
he used skilfully to prolong and secure the left 
flank of the Guards Brigade. Some heavy fight- 



FOREWOKD xiii 

ing ensued which resulted in the enemy being 
driven back. ' ' 

That information reached him through a de- 
spatch rider. For when an army is in motion or 
under a fierce barrage or artillery fire, only 
individual effort will maintain communications, 
and that is supplied mainly by the Motor Cycle 
Despatch Corps. 

"Deliver your despatch at all costs" — these 
are the instructions issued to the cyclist. 

If he fails through no fault of his own, there 
are men to take his place. Five to a Brigade, 
nine to a Division — there is always an adequate 
reserve in hand. If he does not return in a 
stated time, another sets out automatically to 
cover the same ground that he travelled. If 
he does return, it is with evidence that lie has 
accomplished his task. There are three little 
dockets to every message. One the rider leaves 
at his own headquarters to show he has been 
sent with the despatch. One he delivers ; and a 
third, signed by the commander to whom he has 
been sent, he carries back with him, to prove 
that his duty was duly done. They take no 
chances of failure in this service. 



xiv FOREWORD 

Death, capture, accidents — any may overtake 
him on his road, but none may deter or terrify 
him. "The daredevil" — that is the name he 
earned in the early days of the war, when Gen- 
eral French credited him with the salvation of 
the British forces. 

And so I introduce him to you, reader — ' ' The 
Daredevil," with his coadjutor, equally daring, 
the "Buzzer," the men who supply the 
"nerves," and, to use your American slang, 
much of the "nerve" of the modern fighting 
army. 



THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 



THE DAREDEVIL OF THE 
ARMY 

CHAPTER I 

THE AUTHOR STARTS FOR BERLIN ON A MOTOR-CYCLE, 
AND FINDS HIMSELF PRESENTLY ON THE MARNE 



We are awaiting our turn to get aboard the 
Biscay which is lying at her berth in Southamp- 
ton. It is seven in the evening, and we have 
been riding all day, covering the hundred-odd 
miles between Chatham and the sea. Our trip 
has left us dusty and damp with sweat, and 
our reception is not tending to relieve our dis- 
comfort. Lined up beside us some two thou- 
sand Tommies are scanning us with the frank 
criticism of their kind. Our bikes obviously 
provoke their amusement, and we ourselves 
their half-tolerant contempt. Occasionally a 

fragment of their conversation floats towards 

1 



2 THE DABEDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

us, indicative of their general attitude of mind. 

"Who the 'ell are them blokes anyway, 
Nobby?" one regular remarks to another. 
"Gwine to fight on bikes, be they?" 

"Garn," replies Nobby, with his air of su- 
perior wisdom, "they ain't goin' to war. 
They's goin' to a ryce." 

"Ryce, me eye. Look at their uniforms." 
And then evidently for the first time he looks at 
them closely himself, and surprise replaces the 
disgust in his tone. ' ' Gawd Awmighty ! if they 
ain't two up! Gwine to ride over the Kayser, 
Sonny?" He puts the question impertinently 
to the man nearest him. 

For answer he receives a silent scowl, and 
almost voluntarily we all stiffen to attention, 
only to be reminded somewhat sharply of our 
own rawness. After all we are but amateurs 
at his professional game. Only a week ago — 
it is still but August 17th — we were civilians, 
with no thought of entering the service. Now, 
though we wear the King's own coat and two 
corporal's stripes adorn our sleeves, we can 
scarcely claim the title of soldiers. Rigid and 
severe, we are striving to hide our discourage- 



AUTHOR STARTS FOR BERLIN 3 

ment under an air of indifference, when sud- 
denly the voice of the sergeant major comes 
booming across the dock. 

"Now will you, gentlemen," a pause on the 
appellation emphasises its intended sarcasm, 
"kindly try to get those bikes of yours 
aboard?" 

Instantly a shout goes up from the assembled 
regiment — the sergeant major has excellent 
lungs — and amid general jeering we approach 
the .gang-plank. 

1 ' Rotten blighters ! " I hear a mutter in front 
of me. 

So we, the first civilians to take part in the 
great war, leave England for France and the 
front. At seven-thirty, after much shouting and 
shrill screeching of whistles, we finally get 
under way. My motor-cycle stowed safely in the 
after-well-deck, I seek a quiet corner outside 
the Marconi cabin on the hurricane deck, and 
squatting on a coil of rope, settle myself to 
think. It is my first time in ten days to indulge 
in such exercise. All round me is a buzz of con- 
versation. I can hear the clank of an occa- 
sional mess tin, as some well-seasoned regular 



4 THE DAEEDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

proceeds to make himself at home. Looking 
about, I see some dozen of his kind, coats open 
at the collar, belt unloosened, sprawling on 
benches or on the floor. And the sight of them 
makes me horribly homesick. 

" You 're a hot-headed idiot," I decide to my- 
self, "always rushing to the rescue before you 
know the house is afire." And I heartily wish 
myself back in the cool grove of Corrientes. 

For it was at Barcelona that the first mutter- 
ings of the storm found me. Austria and Ser- 
bia on the brink of war ! The Balkans did not 
interest me. Russia coming to the rescue! I 
got a letter from home — there was chance of 
our being caught in the whirlwind. Hot on 
the heels of this came the news that Germany 
was mobilising and France preparing for her 
own defence. I crossed to England just in time 
to hear the first cry for volunteers. Then it 
seemed to come as the answer to a prayer. 

If there was any form of adventure which 
life had still to offer me, I did not know it at 
the time. I had hunted in the heart of Africa, 
had ranched in Bolivia ; had sailed twice round 
the earth and seen all its civilisations. But still 



AUTHOR STARTS FOR BERLIN 5 

I was only twenty-six and not yet surfeited with 
errantry. What next? 

War! The .greatest of all adventures! I 
had not thought to find it in my time. 

It was in such spirit that I joined the army. 
No band played me into a recruiting office. No 
call of patriotism stirred my heart or con- 
science. I know I am only confessing my own 
sins, but on my head be they! Just one con- 
sideration gave me pause for a moment — again 
I reveal my lack of grace. I know something 
of discipline in the navy. I surmised it might 
be similar in the army, and I had no desire to 
experience its tedium. To get to France with- 
out the dull preliminary drilling of a camp — 
that was my only object. And when the special 
call came for University men to form a corps 
of motor-cycle despatch riders, I fought my way 
to the recruiting office like the rest. 

It was quick work. I passed the doctor, 
proved myself competent to handle a bike, went 
to Chatham to get my equipment, and now — 
here I am, rigged out in his Majesty's regimen- 
tals, jeered at by his soldiers, looked askance at 



6 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

by his officers, a "blooming civilian butting in 
on a soldier's business.' ' 

"Lonely, old chap?" I feel a band on my 
shoulder, and look up into a pair of grey Scotch 
eyes. "My name's Grant." He holds out his 
hand. I take it, and so meet my best friend. 

A Dundee lawyer, about my own age, he has 
joined for more serious considerations. Some- 
thing of a student, he saw a crisis was coming. 
Something of a sportsman he wanted to be in 
the thick of it. So he handed his business over 
to a locum tenens, a man too old to serve, and 
hurried up to London to join. 

For a while we talk on general topics, then 
on that nearest our hearts. Can we, undisci- 
plined, hastily picked men, really stand the 
shock of a battle? Is a soldier's business just a 
matter of nerve, or does it require training? 
The powers-that-be have frankly acknowledged 
they are trying an experiment in thus choosing 
us. The military men have scoffed at their con- 
fidence. Are we to set a precedent in favour of 
individual initiative or are we merely to be hor- 
rible examples 1 



AUTHOR STARTS FOR BERLIN 7 

It is ten o'clock before we realise that it is 
time we have food. But where to get it? Our 
equipment does not include it. 

"Just a tick," says Grant, and leaves me for 
a moment, to return with a package of sand- 
wiches that he had carefully stowed away into 
the tool bag of his machine. 

Those finished, we nose round in search for 
more secluded corners. We want to sleep, and 
we have not yet learned to do it gregariously. 
Finally we decided in favour of one of the boats 
that has been turned in. Down we throw our- 
selves on the cover, thanking heaven we have 
learned to "rough it." That ride has insured 
us against the risks of insomnia. 

2 

Dawn wakes us to a raucous sound of snoring 
and a distant vision of the French coast, on 
which Havre stands out, a black dot on the dim 
grey line. It is Grant who rouses me to full 
consciousness. 

"Come on! Let's look for a wash!" 
I follow him sleepily. We trudge the ship 
over thoroughly, upper deck, lower deck, middle 



8 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

deck, all the other decks, but no sign of water 
can we see nor do we meet others bent on a like 
quest. We have decided that bathing is a 
luxury not allowed to soldiers and are proceed- 
ing to return to our nook when a sudden turn 
brings us up sharply against a spruce, shining 
major whom we learn to be the second-in-com- 
mand of the battalion on board. We have sa- 
luted in our self-conscious, rookie fashion and 
are passing, when he halts us with a raised 
hand. We stop and are thus ensnared into our 
first lesson in the nice etiquette of the army. 

"Corporal !" 

"Yes, sir." Grant is the spokesman. 

"What are all you people with bikes doing 
aboard f" 

Grant informs him we are the motor-cycle 
despatch corps. 

"Despatch riders? Why, I had no idea there 
were so many in the British Army. How long 
have you two been in?" 

"Five days, sir." 

The Major whistles, then looks us quizzically 
over. 



AUTHOR STARTS FOR BERLIN 9 

"Five days, and you're going straight into 
the fun ? Rather risky, eh f " 

We shrug our shoulders, and he turns to go, 
when Grant brings him up abruptly with a 
query. Did he know where we could manage 
to get a wash? The enormity of the crime in 
a corporal's thus addressing a major on mat- 
ters of personal cleanliness hardly comes home 
to us even after his lecture. We are rather hot 
under the collar when he finishes his harangue, 
though he delivers it with all possible considera- 
tion. But his next move more than makes up 
for the humiliation, for he takes us to his own 
room for a regular wash ! He was a thoroughly 
decent sort, that Major ! 

By the time we have finished, every one is 
awake, and the ship is tying up alongside the 
wharf. All around is a din calculated to deafen 
tender ears, the clang of accoutrements being 
adjusted, mess tins, rifles, bayonets — and then 
the mad cheering of the people on the dock. 
Half the civilian population of France, or so 
it seems to me, must have had word that "les 
Anglais" were arriving. They have gathered 
there with flags, food, tobacco. Though it 



10 THE DAEEDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

pleases us, still their excitement makes us 
sheepish. What a fearfully demonstrative peo- 
ple they are! We haven't yet realised the im- 
minence of their peril, and their sense of safety 
in being backed by the British fleet. 

It is an hour before the Biscay has disgorged 
her men and cargo. A young officer meets us 
on the dock, and lines us up away on the right, 
telling us to await further orders. Meantime 
our critics, the Tommies, have drawn up in 
company formation. Soon they are ready for 
their road — where it leads heaven only knows. 
Just as they receive the order ' ' Quick March ! ' ' 
there comes an Irish voice, bellowing from the 
bridge of the boat we are leaving behind. 

"So long, Mike!" 

A man in the ranks looks back, and waves. 

"So long, Tim. It's a long way to Tipper- 
ary ! " he shouts. 

Instantly a laugh goes up from the troop, 
and a rollicking voice starts the song. 

"It's a long wa-ay to Tipperary " 

Soon the whole company has taken it up, and 
so for the first time of many hundred in France, 



AUTHOR STARTS FOR BERLIN 11 

I see our men swing off to battle to the air of the 
popular tune. 

A strange sense of desolation sweeps over 
me as I watch them go. Somehow their jaunty 
air of recklessness brings home to me for the 
first time the grim reality of the enterprise I 
am embarked on. I glance at the men beside 
me, lined up so quietly with their bikes. Per- 
haps I am only seeing through the haze of my 
own feelings, but they, too, strike me as 
strangely silent and subdued. But we get no 
time to indulge our desolation, for no sooner 
has the dock cleared of the Tommies than our 
officer presents himself again. 

"You will ride to Rouen and report there to 
the Transportation Officer who will direct you 
to your different sections." His voice is very 
formal at first, then changes abruptly to a more 
cheery note. "Off with you!" he orders. 

Then, as I am proceeding to mount — I hap- 
pen to be at the head of the line — he hands me 
an envelope to be delivered to the T. 0. I 
learned later that it contained a note identi- 
fying us. 



12 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

We are half way across the dock, when a 
happy thought strikes him. 

"Cafe to your right as you go out!" he hol- 
lers. 

We hear him. We would have heard if we 
had been miles off. We make for it with all 
the haste of the really hungry, and, as I eat 
my omelette and drink my cafe au lait, I have 
my first opportunity to size up en masse the 
men who are henceforth to be my companions. 

3 

An English poet, commemorating the early 
deeds of the despatch rider, named him per- 
haps appropriately the " daredevil." A less 
enthusiastic gentleman, describing him since, 
has called him a "glorified messenger-boy." As 
a matter of fact, he may be either one or both, 
according to the character of the fighting. In 
trench warfare he is more liable to be the latter, 
but there were no trenches when we went to 
France. 

The duty of a despatch rider, as every one 
knows, is to carry confidential messages of 
urgent importance from one staff officer to an- 



AUTHOR STARTS FOR BERLIN 13 

other. They may be from a general to a gen- 
eral; they may be merely from a colonel to a 
captain. Always they are from one commis- 
sioned man to another. Which is the reason 
why he wears a corporal's stripes. According 
to the regulations of the British Army, no man 
in the ranks may approach such an officer of his 
own accord, unless accompanied by a non-com. 
And non-coms are, naturally, of too much im- 
portance to be spared as permanent escorts. 
Were it not for this detail of army etiquette, 
the despatch rider would be no more than a 
mere private. 

As to the method of performing his duty, 
there is no definite rule. When we received our 
instructions in London, they were practically 
summed up in the following sentence : 

"Deliver your despatch as quickly as you can, 
and then return to your own section. ' ' 

The how and the when, we were informed, 
would be matters for our own discretion, and 
much discretion we needed at times. 

Suppose a despatch rider meets with an acci- 
dent on the road, and his bike is put entirely out 
of commission. Unseen and unsuspected shell- 



14 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

craters, explosions that fling both man and ma- 
chine off the road are everyday occurrences in 
this job. Even if the man escapes unhurt, he 
can't foot the distance always, if the matter is 
urgent and there are miles to go. A special 
provision allows him the privilege of comman- 
deering on such occasions any vehicle that may 
come in his way, whether it be horse or car, 
and whoever be the occupant. 

But 

There was a man once who, after tramping a 
couple of miles, could find no conveyance ex- 
cept that occupied by a general. He had cour- 
age, however, so he turned the general out, 
but oh! what a tirade he brought on his own 
head ! Afterwards he received a decoration for 
his audacity — when the general who fortunately 
had a sense of humour, had had time to recover 
his dignity and his temper. But I should hate 
to have been in his shoes. There were scores 
of us, of course, who ordered officers out of their 
saddles and diverted Army Service Corps 
trucks out of their destined route, and the 
curses that accompanied us on our journeys 
were not always pleasant to hear. If our in- 



AUTHOR STARTS FOR BERLIN 15 

structor had substituted the word Diplomacy 
for Discretion, he would have been somewhat 
nearer the mark. 

Again there is always the danger when the 
armies are on the move and not engaged, as 
they were later, on stationary destruction, of 
coming full-tilt into a straggling enemy troop. 

"If you fall into the hands of the enemy," 
said our mentor, " destroy your despatch at 
all costs. Otherwise they may divert it to their 
own staff officers." 

And then what a coup for the hostile strat- 
egists ! 

The usual method in such a case was to eat 
it — or rather to swallow it whole. The authori- 
ties, careful as usual of our digestions, as a rule 
wrote it on slim tissue paper that would almost 
melt in the mouth. Occasionally we had suffi- 
cient time to burn it, but not often. Occasion- 
ally, too, after destroying it as a precaution, we 
escaped. To meet this emergency which was 
also foreseen, we had orders to memorise our 
message always before starting, so that, in case 
of necessity, we could deliver it by word of 
mouth. 



16 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

This rule in its turn led to further complica- 
tions. The enemy knew that we had our de- 
spatches learned by heart. If they caught us 
and failed to find papers on our persons, imme- 
diately such a cross-questioning began as might 
well confuse even a seasoned criminal. Usually 
this was met by a closed mouth which no threat 
of death would serve to open. This, in turn, 
was met with a new ruse. 

Before very thorough detective work had 
eliminated the menace, it was no unusual thing 
to meet men wearing our uniform and speaking 
our language but serving on the staff of His 
Imperial Majesty of Germany and not on that 
of King George. They would have been very 
glad to induce us to part amicably with our 
information. It was to circumvent such gen- 
tlemen that our last order was issued. 

"The despatch must be delivered in person 
to the officer to whom it is addressed." 

That was all. A unique simplicity marked 
our entire training. I decided, when they dis- 
missed me in London, that it would take a fool 
to fail, and comparing my job with that of a 



AUTHOR STARTS FOR BERLIN 17 

private on the line, I felt that the War Office 
has no high respect for my intelligence. 

Consequently as I looked round me that morn- 
ing in the Havre Cafe at the men selected for 
the Cycle Corps, I was astonished at the lavish 
hand that would waste such material on such 
crude and casual work. 

Out of the twenty assembled round me, not 
more than two had failed to graduate from 
either Oxford or Cambridge, and they were pro- 
fessional men of high standing in their own 
line, far above the type that might be deemed 
suitable for a competent "regular." Yet it 
was not so much trained intelligence that 
marked them as a group as a native ability, a 
certain keenness, a quality of initiative that 
would augur well for their readiness to meet an 
emergency. Physically, too, they were far 
above the average. About three of them fell 
short of a full six feet, a few would top that 
height by a few inches. All of them had proved 
their power to handle a gun with ease and shown 
an intimate knowledge of the moods and mech- 
anism of motor-cycles. Which facts in them- 
selves constituted a guarantee that they had 



18 THE DAEEDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

lived rather largely in the open. If further 
evidence was needed, it was supplied by their 
appetites. 

' ' Voulez-vous donner moi un autre ome- 
lette 1 ?" some one asks Madame in his best 
nigger French. He had already consumed two 
of those substantial concoctions. 

' ' Mais, Monsieur ! ' ' Madame, a plump, pleas- 
ing person, throws up her hands in horror, then 
remembering the instincts of her trade, runs off 
and is back with it in a few moments. 

We are kept waiting by him — I learn later 
that his name is Poole — but not even our out- 
spoken impatience could induce him to hurry. 
By the time he is finished, however, we have 
mapped out our routes, and by nine o'clock we 
are well on our way to Rouen. 

It is a glorious morning. As we skim along 
the Rue de National, at full throttle, our spirits 
rise to the point of exuberance. Poole comes in 
for most of our surplus mental energy. Though 
he weighs about 250 pounds, he is riding a two 
and a quarter H. P. Douglas. Lawrence, a 
rather decent chap, offers to change, suggesting 
that the giant will never make the journey safe 



AUTHOR STARTS FOR BERLIN 19 

on his small machine. Indignant, Poole offers 
to race him to Rouen for ten shillings. Prob- 
ably it was our desire to keep even with the con- 
testants that brought us to that town in record 
time. 

We arrive there about noon. It is another 
hour before we can find the T. 0. Finally we 
locate him at a rest camp. It seems we are to 
be split up into sections along the various parts 
of the line. Poole, Lawrence, Grant and I are 
to be attached to the Second Cavalry Brigade. 
What luck! We have chummed up already. 
The next lap of our journey is to end at Amiens, 
where we will be directed straight to the fight- 
ing line. With luck we will be in the thick of it 
in another day. 

4 
It is August 25th, 1914. The ' ' contemptible ' ' 
British Expeditionary Force in France under 
Field Marshal Sir John French, is falling back 
before the numerically overwhelming German 
Army. From the Bavay-Maubeuge positions, 
the Second Corps under Sir Horace Smith-Dor- 
rien is retreating with orderly haste on the Le 



20 THE DAREDEVIL OP THE ARMY 

Cateau-Lanrecies line, their rear protected by 
a troop of cavalry. And in a little farmhouse 
outside the former town, we are endeavouring 
to keep open communications in a temporary 
Signal Office, which leaves much to be desired. 
It is a dark, dirty hovel — one wonders at the 
family's reluctance to leave it — but our haste 
gives us no leisure to make a choice. In a re- 
mote corner of the kitchen the telephone oper- 
ator has set up his switch on a wooden pedestal 
labelled ' ' Jam. ' ' All along the wall, where still 
hang the cooking utensils, are ranged the teleg- 
raphers busily clicking their Morse keys. If 
visible evidence is needed of the urgency of 
their tasks, it may be gathered from the posi- 
tions of their " Woodbines." Instead of de- 
pending at the usual angle from their lower lips, 
they now stick jauntily behind their ears. Re- 
moved from the rest at a position near the win- 
dow, the Subaltern, a mere boy on whom re- 
sponsibility has thrust age, sits anxiously 
poring over his maps and charts which 
tell of the positions of the lines and cables that 
an enemy shell may at any moment cut. Ex- 
hausted men on whose faces is a four days' 



AUTHOR STARTS FOR BERLIN 21 

growth of beard already matted with summer 
sweat and summer dust, heavy-eyed with sleep- 
lessness, hollow-eyed with strain, they work 
with the dogged intensity of desperation. 

"Line down on the road to Cambrai! ,, The 
man has to scream to drown the gun-roar. 

With a curse a lineman sets out on his job. 

"Last two D. R.'s not yet returned, sir." 
This message is meant as a reminder. 

The Subaltern looks up, pauses a moment as 
if to consider. Those despatch riders had left 
around five o'clock. It is now five-thirty, and 
Landrecies but five miles away! They should 
be back, unless some disaster has overtaken 
them. With sudden decision, the Subaltern 
puts his head through the neighbouring window, 
and shouts in the general direction of the barn. 

"Next two D. R.'s!" 

At the sound of his voice four men spring 
to their feet. They had been lying full-length 
in the dirty yard, a somewhat cooler spot on 
this hot August evening than their quarters, 
the cow-house. 

They are the remaining four of the six de- 
spatch riders who go to form this Motor Cycle 



22 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

Section. Let us present them before they are 
separated by the impending journey. 

A couple of weeks ago a casual glance might 
have sized them up as gentlemen. Now even 
a close scrutiny might have measured them as 
tramps. True, they are clad in the uniform of 
the British Army, but it is so covered with dirt 
as to have lost even its nondescript hue. The 
coat which a regimental tailor buttons smartly 
to the throat is thrown open to admit the sultry 
air ; and a cap which a kind quartermaster places 
so trimly on the head, has been replaced by a 
large handkerchief, the colour of which is some- 
what shady. Only the belts at the waist, from 
which depend business-like revolvers, and the 
maps slung securely over the shoulders, betray 
their fitness for the part they are to play, of 
which their bikes, much cleaner-looking objects 
than their owners, give further convincing evi- 
dence. 

Who are they? 

Well, there is Grant of the grey Scotch eyes, 
he from whose mouth hangs the dun pipe. And 
there is Hudson, the Belfast architect, now 
rivalling the grimiest of his bricklayers. And 



AUTHOR STARTS FOR BERLIN 23 

there is Harrison, the Cantab undergraduate, 
whose "people were so decent about his age." 
A scrupulous father might have held him back 
a couple of years. Lastly there is myself, a 
different person from that particular young 
man whom a short time ago we found looking 
so eagerly for a wash. Two weeks on the line 
have taught us the unimportance of such trifles 
as cleanliness. What's a dirty neck more or 
less, with death staring you in the face? Life 
itself is the possession that we have now learned 
to prize, and war, the great romantic adven- 
ture, has developed into a wild scurry to dodge 
the bursting of a shell. 

Hudson and Harrison are the next on the list, 
but Grant and I accompany them to the farm- 
house door, in case the Subaltern might care to 
choose us for this crisis. Harrison has only 
arrived the day before. But it's his turn, and 
it seems he has to take it. 

' ' You know what to do ? That 's right. Swal- 
low it, if they get you. Remember there are 
stray Uhlans about, and Poole and Lawrence 
may have been caught. Now for directions. 
Go together to the cross-roads — those with the 



24 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

crucifix. Then take separate routes to the town. 
One of you may get through, if the two don't." 

A pleasant prospect. The Subaltern looks 
at Harrison, as he presents it, as if expecting 
some protest from the new recruit. But none 
comes, and the youngster, their age and sta- 
tion but for an accident, is suddenly moved to 
put out a hand. 

"Good luck!" He gives each a grip in turn, 
before they double out of the room. 

"Better strap the thing on your forefinger, 
old chap," advises Hudson with the wisdom 
gleaned in a week. He is referring to the pre- 
cious tissue paper. "Handier to your mouth 
that way." 

It takes them but two minutes to memorise 
the message and then they mount and are off 
on the darkening, dangerous road. Soon the 
crest of a hill hides them, and left alone, we 
lie down again. Among our new accomplish- 
ments is a facility for sleeping anywhere. But 
before slumber could come to soothe us, we 
hear voices nearby, and we listen. Some strag- 
gling Tommies are talking, and we are the sub- 
ject under discussion. 



AUTHOR STARTS FOR BERLIN 25 

"Not so bad for bloomin' civvies," says one, 
apropos of our departed friends. 

We feel that we have accomplished much in 
these two weeks. 



Ten-thirty — the guns are booming with ever 
nearer menace, utterly preventing our attempt 
at sleep. We are hourly expecting the order 
to move. Hudson, who is back after what seemed 
undue delay, reports a tough fight going on in 
Landrecies. We are holding a narrow street 
with a few machine guns on which the Germans 
continue to advance with their usual unlimited 
supply of gun-meat. It will be dead meat, piled 
high before morning, if we can only manage 
to hold out. 

But where's Harrison? No sign of him yet 
either in Landrecies or on the road home. And 
Poole? Poole had delivered his despatch. So 
much Hudson had learned on his arrival, but 
of Lawrence no sign had been seen. We are 
discussing the probabilities of capture or col- 
lapse with a callousness that would have seemed 
brutal two weeks ago but which we have ac- 



26 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

quired with apparent ease of late, when there 
suddenly looms up out of the darkness of the 
road a motor-bike, carrying a strange object 
behind. 

Soon a voice proclaims the rider as Poole, 
but what is the uncouth burden he is bearing? 
Flesh or fish; dead or alive? It answers both 
questions by jumping to the earth, when the 
bike comes to a jarring halt. It is the Sub- 
altern who has come out to take the air for a 
moment, who announces its identity by an ironi- 
cal question. 

"Been shrimping, Lawrence?" he asks po- 
litely. 

Only then do we recognise our chum. A 
shapeless mass of slimy mud which clings to his 
clothes, his hands, his hair, his face, he looks 
for all the world like some prehistoric animal 
that has just risen from its oozy lair. 

"Rotten duck-pond," he spits and shakes 
himself, as he tries to talk. "Been floundering 
about in it for hours. Dived into it headfirst, 
trying to take a nasty corner at full speed. The 
damn bike drove me down deeper — it came right 



AUTHOR STARTS FOR BERLIN 27 

on top of me. Must be a couple of miles of the 
stuff down under the water." 

He was the first of us to get really intimate 
with the squelchy qualities of Northern French 
soil. 

"Even when I got my head above water, I 
couldn't get my feet. The more I tried, the 
more entangled they seemed to become. Might 
as well have tried to walk with leaden shoes 
on." 

How long it would have taken him to extri- 
cate himself alone is a question I leave to the 
imagination. It was Poole who finally rescued 
him after he had been struggling for what 
seemed hours. Even then it took strategy on 
the part of the two, as, indeed, it had taken fore- 
sight on Poole's part. He had delayed for some 
time in Landrecies, waiting for Lawrence to 
turn up. They had taken different routes on 
setting out. On the off-chance that an accident 
had happened, Poole had changed his road on 
the way home. Hence the rescue. And now, as 
Lawrence retires to the farm pump, we notice 
that his saviour looks rather white-faced and 
nervous. 



28 THE DAKEDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

"Anything wrong?" asks Grant. 

"Oh, nothing much. Had a narrow squeak 
with some Uhlans." He seems entirely in- 
disposed to go into detail at the moment, so we 
open him a tin of bully and fetch him some 
water to help him in recovering his aplomb. 
If we thought thus to elicit the story, we were 
mistaken, for, even under the inspiration of a 
full stomach and a lit pipe, he refuses to satisfy 
our curiosity. We might never have heard what 
really happened, if a strange chance had not 
given us an inkling of the story, and forced him 
to confess to being a hero. 

It was about half an hour later that a troop 
of our cavalry could be seen galloping over the 
hill. As they approached, we could see they 
were escorting some Uhlans whom they hemmed 
in from all sides. Passing the Signal Office, 
the sergeant caught sight of our Subaltern and 
immediately gave the order to halt. Then, rid- 
ing over, he saluted, and explained that he had 
found the Huns prowling along the road leading 
from the Southeast to Landrecies. Now he 
would hand them over to the officer's charge. 

They dismounted, preparatory to being led off 



AUTHOR STARTS FOR BERLIN 29 

to an inner room for the customary formality 
of being questioned. As they did so, one of 
them caught sight of Poole, and, nudging the 
other, he was heard to say in quite audible 
tones : 

"There he is!" 

But Poole, very busy for the moment with his 
carburetor, either did not hear or made a fine 
pretence of not doing so. Five minutes later, 
however, the sergeant's head appeared in the 
doorway, calling for the reticent hero. He de- 
parted, to return with a half -happy, half-sheep- 
ish grin. 

"What's the matter?" 

"Nothing. Some rot these Huns are talk- 
ing." 

But our curiosity was not to be stilled with 
such an excuse. By dint of probing both him 
and the more eloquent sergeant, we got the 
whole story by degrees. Here it is. It is one 
of our reasons for being proud of Poole. 

He had reached a cross-roads on his way from 
Landrecies. Shoot to the right — that was the 
turn for home. His bike took the curve at a 
dangerous angle, and, as he once more swept 



30 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

into the level, he raised his head to scan the new 
road. Lawrence was the object he was looking 
for, but what he saw at a distance of not more 
than a hundred yards was six Uhlans seated on 
their fine mounts. 

There was no time to turn — the speed of his 
bike decided that. And there was little time to 
think, not more, indeed, than a few seconds. 
Would he surrender! That might ensure his 
life, but the idea of a German prison did not 
entice him. In quick succession these thoughts 
shot through his mind, each second making a 
decision more difficult, as it brought him nearer 
his enemy. He was making about sixty miles 
an hour. 

"I'll chance rushing them," he decided 
finally, and, banging open the throttle of his 
machine, he sent his speed up another five miles. 

Forty yards from them, he could see them fin- 
gering their carbines. Thirty-five yards — he 
could see one of them, probably a sergeant, 
shouting an order to the others. Thirty yards 
— they were stretching in a line across the road. 

Letting go one hand, he drew his revolver. 

Twenty-five yards — he could see the two cen- 



AUTHOR STARTS FOR BERLIN 31 

tre Uhlans taking steady aim at his head. With 
a sudden jerk he drew himself erect in his sad- 
dle and then suddenly let his body fall along 
the top of his tank, at the same time letting go 
his revolver. He heard their bullets whizz by 
him — he had spoiled their aim — and he saw 
one man topple over, hit square on the chest, 
and the horse of the second rear and come down 
with a crash into the two Uhlans on the left of 
the road. 

Five yards from them — he could see they 
were in hopeless confusion, and, as he shot 
through the broken line exultantly — Poole avers 
it was the greatest thrill of his life — he sent two 
more bullets point blank at the men on the right, 
and tore past, a dark streak on the dusty high- 
way. 

Crouched over his handle-bars, muscles taut, 
nerves quivering, he strained his ears for any 
sounds that might indicate pursuit. They came. 
He could hear the pounding of horses' hoofs on 
the hard road. 

"Galloping like mad," he commented to him- 
self. But it would take some Centaur to catch 
up with his bike. 



32 THE DAEEDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

" Whizz" — another bullet shot past his ear. 
He crouched still lower on his saddle. And 
then — the gods were kind — there came another 
cross-roads. How he thanked heaven for these 
winding French highways and the hedges that 
would hide him on either side! Out of sight 
he was safe — a horse can't rival a motor-bike. 
So he came home with a whole but quivering 
skin. 

"Of course it was the horses that did the 
trick," he explains amiably. "The bike and 
the shooting upset their nerves, so they pranced 
round a bit, and spoiled the blighters' aim. I'll 
buy a horse, when I go home, and pet him to 
death." 

6 

Off again. The inexhaustible Hun is deter- 
mined to keep us moving. Our orders are to 
fall back in the general direction of St. Quentin- 
La Fere. Cable wagons dash out to reel in as 
much as possible of the wire they had laid just 
a day or two before. The operators are busy 
picking up their field buzzers and telephones. 
A merciful and ingenious government has re- 
duced the weight of their pack to about three 



AUTHOR STARTS FOR BERLIN 33 

pounds. Soon they are all piled into the wagons, 
and we get off, a rather miserable train. Some- 
where ahead of us is the Brigade Commander 
with his staff; somewhere in the rear of us is 
the retreating infantry. 

All night and the next day we keep on the 
move, whither we don't know, but it is some- 
where southwest. It is scorchingly hot, and the 
roads are thick with dust which stifles our nos- 
trils and thickens our tongues. We pass through 
villages where our coming is the sign for in- 
creased panic. Stupefied women surrounded 
with wailing children are piling their household 
goods on to trucks and carts. They block our 
way, but their misery hardly moves us at all. 

At times we come to a crowd whose patriotism 
is greater than their panic. They greet us with 
the Marseillaise, an urchin or two already 
knows Tipperary. They offer us drinks, to- 
bacco and food. All they ask is news. We have 
none save that our army is retreating. We 
give it, and the women set up a great "La- 
La-ing. ' ' 

"Damn their infernal racket!" Grant growls 



34 THE DAEEDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

at times. We are too tired to string our nerves 
up to the pitch of proper sympathy. 

Soon I find myself journeying alone. 

About four in the afternoon we had halted 
for rest, but I was no sooner off my bike than 
the Signal Officer came and handed me a mes- 
sage for the Guards Brigade. He had no idea 
where they were. 

"Somewhere in France !" he declared jo- 
cosely. "I imagine they're off to the right." 

As the Germans hadn't caught up with us, 
there was no danger of my capture, so he didn't 
think it necessary to send two of us. I took 
the road he indicated and wandered about for 
what seemed hours. Finally an Army Service 
Corps truck loomed up in the distance. 

"The Guards? Some one said they were en- 
trenching round Etreux." He pronounced it 
' * Extroox, ' ' but we found it on the map. It was 
off in another direction. Luckily, however, it 
was on the Rue de National, so I found it with- 
out much delay. 

My message was to a Brigade Major. I was 
unconscious of my general aspect, until I met his 
eye. I knew I was dirty, unwashed, unshaven. 



AUTHOR STARTS FOR BERLIN 35 

I'd had no sleep in three days, so my lids felt as 
if weighted with lead. My mind had ceased to 
work, so numb was my Ijrain with fatigue. Only 
now for the first time was I conscious of my 
condition. But, as he handed me my receipts, 
he put a hand on my shoulder. 

"I'm proud of you fellows," he declared in 
his hearty tone. "Our soldiers are magnificent, 
but then this is their business. You have no 
traditions to keep up." I flushed with pride 
under my dust, and he patted me on the back. 
When one is fatigued, one is foolishly suscepti- 
ble to flattery. 

"Pretty fagged, eh?" He inquired next. 
"Here, take a sip of this." He took out a glass 
flask from his pocket. 

I'm afraid "sip" would not describe my 
drink. As I handed the flask back, a humorous 
smile twisted the corners of his mouth. 

"Irish, eh?" He glanced at the flask. "Noth- 
ing like a drop of the ' crater' to put the heart 
in a man these nasty times. ' ' He gave me a slap 
on the back, before I mounted my bike, and I 
went off whistling on my way. I was glad I had 
been chosen for that trip. 



36 THE DAEEDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

I got back to my starting-place, only to find 
they had moved again. It was an hour later 
before I caught up with the rear of the Brigade, 
camping in the neighbourhood of Venerolles, 
where a halt had been called for the night. 

We got a cow-house for a bedroom, but straw 
covered the dirt, and we were content with the 
mere fact that we had some hours to sleep. That 
night stands out in my memory, an oasis in the 
parched desert. The oasis fell from heaven. 

Rain! It came in torrents! To welcome it, 
we walked out, throwing open our collars and 
the fronts of our shirts to let it fall on our with- 
ered skin. What a tonic it was ! We were in- 
vigorated, men again. Our gratitude, however, 
faded next morning, when we had to set out on 
our road. 

Perhaps you have ridden a motor-cycle over 
slippery surfaces, and you know what the slime 
does to the wheels. But try to imagine yourself 
keeping the bike erect on the slithery tops of 
cobble stones, not those smooth flat stones you 
find in England or America, but those round, 
uneven, beautifully curved cobbles standing 
anywhere from four to six inches out of the 



AUTHOR STARTS FOR BERLIN 37 

earth with which they pave the village streets 
in France. By noon my wrists had swollen to 
an unbelievable size from the effort of my task. 
I knew now why the foreseeing authorities had 
chosen strong men for the Despatch Corps. We 
were all but exhausted when we reached St. 
Quentin. 

Our stay in the quaint old town, however, was 
destined to be short. The Germans were com- 
ing on pretty fast. Behind us we could hear 
the guns thundering out their terrific threat. 
There was nothing to do but keep moving. The 
sun had come out again, so we jogged along in 
our dull, damp misery, halting now by the road- 
side to eat such food as we had, or pulling up at 
a stream to bathe our heads in the cool water. 
A trip to a neighbouring town broke the mo- 
notony for us riders. Cable communications 
were out of the question for the present, with 
the Huns close on our heels. It was up to the 
Despatch Corps now to keep the small body of 
the British Army articulate. 

Le Fere! It is Saturday. At least so they 
tell us. We have time for a shave and a wash, 
with a fairly decent hot meal as meals go. We 



38 THE DAEEDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

sleep in houses to-night, and come out in a 
square in the morning to catch a glimpse of a 
"Taube" overhead. It is no more than twenty- 
five hundred feet up. Instantly the Tommies 
straggling round start a perfect fusillade with 
their rifles, and succeed in doing more damage 
to themselves than to the Boche. Not to be 
outdone I whip out my revolver, and take a pot- 
shot in woolly West fashion. 

"Ah, don't 'urt 'im, sonny," says a sarcastic 
voice at my side. 

In my excitement I had forgotten the limited 
powers of my Webly. 

By noon we are off again. A downpour 
catches us on the road, but we plod on, rather 
sick and disgruntled. So it goes for the whole 
week. Always the same order — to keep mov- 
ing. Always the same accompaniment to our 
journey — the grim din in the distance. Always 
the same question in our minds — are we ever 
to be allowed to face them! 

Courcy-le-Chateau, some dozen villages, Vil- 
liers-Cotteret — we tramp through them all. I 
touch Soissons and a few more on my side-trips. 
In them I pick up such food as I get at an esta- 



AUTHOR STARTS FOR BERLIN 39 

minet. Sleep! rest! They are precious things 
these times. We get them by snatches at longer 
and longer intervals. And so we approach Paris 
— and the Marne. But that name means noth- 
ing to us yet. 

At last — it is September, but we hardly know 
the date, so confused is our sense of time and so 
unimportant has it become — we receive the 
order to halt. Somewhere on our right we learn 
is the town of Courtaeon, held by the Fifth 
Corps of the French Army. Somewhere on our 
left is the British Army and the town of Cou- 
lommiers. "We, the Second Cavalry Brigade, 
wedged between the two, are the link that binds 
the great chain. 

This time our Signal Station is set up in an 
open field. In one corner by a green hedge squat 
the telegraph clerks and the telephone opera- 
tors, setting up their instruments as best they 
may. At some distance on the grass is our 
group of despatch riders, taking a snooze when- 
ever we get a chance. It comes rarely. There 
is great demand for our services these days. 

Two messages an hour — that is our average. 
In two days I cover some six hundred miles in 



40 THE DAEEDEVIL OF THE AKMY 

my flying trips from one part of the line to an- 
other. Two messages an honr, day and night — 
there is to be no let-np for the present. We 
have forgotten that the dark should bring sleep, 
that the morning should bring breakfast and 
the noon lunch. Food we have come to regard 
as a gift straight from the gods. It drops on 
us like the manna from heaven, descending on 
us through the agency of an Army Service 
Corps truck. We eat it, when we get it, if we 
have the time. 

France was being saved in those days, but 
how were we to know that? My first day was 
made memorable by a trip to the French lines — 
I had never before met our Allied fighters. The 
officer I wanted was absent, so a French des- 
patch rider was deputed to take me to the 
man I sought. ' * The despatch must be delivered 
in person.* ' 

A slim, little, lithe figure on an equally slim 
bike which he rode German-fashion with arms 
aloft on high handle-bars and feet sticking up in 
the air, he skimmed along in front of me, a 
dainty butterfly leading a cart horse. Up-hill 
I lost sight of him. Down-hill I swept by him. 



AUTHOR STARTS FOR BERLIN 41 

I was instructed to keep close behind him, but 
it was altogether too hard a job. We passed 
through a village, the name of which I never 
learned, and my eye was held by the sight of a 
squat, resplendent officer shining with a pro- 
fusion of gold lace. I asked his name. 

"Joffre!" 

The man who was then saving France, and he 
was strolling at leisure through the street ! 

My second day was made memorable by an 
incident that held my interest. They were mak- 
ing history round me, but what was that to me? 
My attention was still occupied with compara- 
tive trifles. And yet, perhaps, this man whose 
story I am going to tell, contributed more than 
he or I knew to the victory on the Marne. At 
least it was such as he who made it possible. 

I had delivered a despatch to another British 
Brigade, when I happened to run into Hodder. 
He was sitting in the Signal Station, wounded. 
It was a by-stander who told me the tale. 

He had been riding hell-for-leather near a 
wood, when a German sniper caught him on the 
foot. A fine shot, when the target was a des- 
patch-rider. Over keeled Hodder and his bike, 



42 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

coming to earth with a terrible thud. It stunned 
him for a moment. When he recovered his 
senses, he knew there was no chance for him 
to mount that bike again. But he couldn't 
walk, with his foot in that condition. Still there 
was the despatch. It must get through at all 
costs. 

Down he went on all fours. There were three 
miles to his goal. He crawled into the wood 
which was plentifully scattered with Uhlans. 
Luckily they were not looking to find a rider 
among the underbrush. It took him hours to 
get through, but he did it, His clothes were in 
ribbons; his face all scarred, and his foot — but 
that is better left to the imagination. He de- 
livered his despatch. He got the D. C. M. But 
that was some time afterwards, when the great 
scrap was all over. 

At the end of the second day we received 
the order to advance. Lord! how that order 
stirred our hearts! Move forward! It was 
the first time since we landed in France. We 
looked eagerly at one another, half afraid to 
surmise the truth. Had we really driven the 
blighters back? Had we actually stemmed the 



AUTHOR STARTS FOR BERLIN 43 

flood that was inundating France with fire and 
slaughter? Bit by bit the news filtered to us in 
confidential whispers. The tide had been turned 
on the Marne ! But it was fully three days be- 
fore we, partakers in the victory, knew what our 
efforts had helped to do. Paris had been saved. 
Now for the rest of France. Our task had only 
just begun. 



CHAPTER II 

THE AUTHOR ASSISTS AT A VICTORY AND ABANDONS 
HIS BIKE FOR BETTER THINGS 

1 

We have beaten them on the Marne ; we have 
beaten them on the Aisne. We have fraternised 
with them at Christmas during a twenty-four 
hour truce and found them human in the matter 
of souvenirs. Their officers have assured us 
that we have not a chance in a thousand — quite 
politely, of course, but with absolute conviction. 
By March we're to be flying with the first East- 
ern winds. 

Well, we've kept them sitting all winter in 
their trenches waist-deep in French and Flan- 
ders mud. Meantime, of course, we've been sit- 
ting in it ourselves, with occasional relief in the 
shape of a run to London. 

The Motor Cycle Despatch Corps, having 
earned the particular praise of Field Marshal 
Sir John French, is unusually lucky in the mat- 

44 



AUTHOR ASSISTS AT A VICTORY 45 

ter of these reliefs. Besides fresh men have 
been coming out in droves, a fact which com- 
bined with the general quiet along the line, 
makes it comparatively easy for the old men to 
get leave of absence. 

I get seven days' home. Lord! how they 
loved us in those days in London ! Private cars 
meet us at the Charing Cross station. Pretty 
girls hurl flowers at our heads. Crowds of 
cheering, excited men and women block our 
autos and impede our egress from the station. 
But we don't mind. We sit in the tonneaus, 
grinning amiably, a little embarrassed, if the 
truth must be told, by this somewhat novel role 
of returned hero. Not that we dislike it, you 
know! Far from that! But we don't feel our- 
selves big enough for the shoes. 

At the end of the seven days, so crowded that 
they fly by on wings, I go back and find strange 
changes on the line. It is now shortly after 
Christmas. The cavalry, of no use in this sta- 
tionary warfare, has been dismounted, much to 
its chagrin. Now its members are squatting in 
the mud along with the hitherto despised in- 
fantry. Lord ! what a fall was there ! 



46 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

Our Section which, you remember, had been 
attached to the Second Cavalry Corps, has been 
split up and scattered along the line. I lose my 
friend Grant ; we are assigned to different units, 
but at least he is within calling distance, when- 
ever there is time to call. I am with a Brigade 
attached to the Fourth Corps, and Grant with 
an adjoining one two miles away. 

But things are not as they were. Excitement 
has given place to ennui. Each day is like an- 
other, endlessly boring with its uneventful rou- 
tine. War has degenerated into a dull, drab 
affair, an unromantic contest, mainly with the 
elements, the element of mud putting up the best 
fight. 

And so we come through the winter, a dis- 
gruntled, disagreeable crowd, lazy, too, and in- 
clined to cavil at all orders. If they won't let 
us fight, then why the devil can't we go home? 
That is in general our attitude of mind. 

Comes a rumour shortly at which we all sit up. 

The Russians are doing great things these 
days — it is now well into the Spring. One of 
our trench oracles opines that we are going to 
help them. There is vague talk of a "push," 



AUTHOR ASSISTS AT A VICTORY 47 

a poke in the ribs, so to speak, which will re- 
mind old Fritz that we are still alive and keep 
his attention from wandering too exclusively 
to the East. The blighter must not get the habit 
of feeling at home in France or Flanders. 

Immediately such a change is noticeable along 
the line as must have gladdened the heart of 
the high command. Our step is surer, our heads 
a little higher, and we work with a new and 
eager will. After all sitting in mud is no in- 
citement to deeds of daring. The mere thought 
of a move bucks us up. 

2 

For three days now we have been preparing 
for the event. Not that the powers-that-be have 
deigned to take us into their confidence. They 
are far too aloof for that. But they can't hide 
the evidences all round. 

Morning, noon and night we are riding with 
our messages, all of them marked " Priority,' ' 
which means that they admit of no delay. And 
all along the roads leading to and from Neuve 
Chapelle there is unceasing motion, endless pro- 
cessions that block our paths and impede our 



48 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

progress. Ammunition trains, convoys, Army 
Service Corps wagons — they are all moving up, 
carrying supplies for men and guns. In our 
efforts to pass them, we occasionally find our- 
selves lying in the ditch, as a result of over- 
estimating the width of the French roads. 

And Lord ! what weather we are having ! The 
heavens, disapproving of our preparations, do 
their best to hinder them and harm us. They 
simply open, and let the water pour down on 
our heads. We slip and slither all over the 
roads, and our wrists ache with the effort of 
keeping our machines erect. But somehow we 
manage in spite of it all. 

Never in the early dark days before the 
Marne have we been as busy as we are now. 
All through the night of March 9th and the fol- 
lowing morning, I carry despatch after despatch 
— to an artillery commander, an A. S. C. offi- 
cer, a battalion commander, over and over 
again. When finally day dawns and hell 
breaks loose, it is to find me with twenty hours' 
sleep in arrears. 

About seven o'clock, or a little earlier, the 
thunder is loosed. The guns which for days 



AUTHOR ASSISTS AT A VICTORY 49 

have kept up a constant crackle, now burst into 
a deafening roar. As I scurry along the roads, 
shells whir over my head. Thank heaven I am 
not at the busy end of their range ! 

Seven-thirty the curtain lifts, then is lowered 
farther back. A signal that the infantry has 
gone over! 

I am detailed to take a message to the Twen- 
ty-first Brigade, one of the first to advance in 
the fight. There is electricity in the air to-day, 
the electricity of excitement. It quivers along 
my spine ; it stings my fagged brain. My mind 
is clear with the horrible clarity that is often 
the result of lack of sleep. 

I spin along and am suddenly made aware of 
the fact that not all the shells are coming from 
our side. Not twenty yards in front of me, I 
see a great "Bertha" burst. 

Plop ! it goes square in the middle of the road. 
I have plenty of time to stop and plenty of room 
to swerve. My hands make a motion as if to* 
turn the handle-bars, but my eyes are rivetted 
to that hole in the road. A grim fountain is 
playing there, spewing up sprays of mud, clay, 



50 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

smoke, stones and pieces of shell. They fasci- 
nate me. 

"Turn your bike," says my brain. 

But my eyes are glued to the spot. Like the 
lady driver who is so anxious for the safety of 
a lamp post, I can't leave that crater out of my 
sight. Presently I am conscious that we are 
meeting. Headfirst I go into it, but I land on top 
of my bike. 

"Of all the blamed fools!" I say angrily to 
myself. "One would think you never saw a 
shell burst before." 

I pick up my machine. It is unhurt. I climb 
out, furious with myself and quite unable to 
explain the phenomenon. Why should any sen- 
sible man ride straight into a hole? I mount 
again. It must have been half an hour later 
that I noticed a certain awkwardness in one of 
the fingers of my left hand. I had broken or 
sprained it in the crash. 

I get back to my section and hear the glad 
news. We're advancing. The reinforcements 
are going up. Everything is working like a 
clock, but the Boches are by no means beaten. 

Off again on a message. The "Berthas" are 



AUTHOR ASSISTS AT A VICTORY 51 

still busy. One falls in a field adjoining the road 
on which I ride. Another whirs over my head, 
with a scream like an eagle's. Along the way 
I come on evidences of their work. Here is a 
horse's trunk from which the head and legs 
have been severed; there a man's corpse almost 
cut in two. But I am not at all shaken by such 
sights. 

What's the matter with me? I should be ter- 
rified by all the rules of this game. I remember 
legends of brave men who not only felt but con- 
fessed their fears. Where is the panic that the 
novelists promised me ? Why should I be losing 
all the thrills? 

Here am I skimming swiftly over a shell-rid- 
den road, cheeks ruddy that should be ashen, 
hand steady that should be shaking, vision clear 
that should be clouded, brain functioning that 
should be fuddled. Is my calm an abnormal 
calm, a calm keyed to a higher pitch perhaps 
than that with which we conduct our daily af- 
fairs ? Or is it a callous calm bred of familiarity 
with horrors too often seen? Is nature so ad- 
justable that she can become contemptuous even 
of death itself? 



52 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

"You may be killed by the next corner,' ' I 
tell myself earnestly. But my knees refuse to 
quake. 

And then I come to the next corner, and sud- 
denly my equanimity is lost. 

For there by the roadside I see a rider lying 
on his face, a broken bike by his side. There 
is something familiar about that recumbent 
form. I dismount, turn it over, and recognise 
my friend, Grant. 

So the rotters have got him! Grant of the 
grey Scotch eyes, the best chum man ever had ! 
Got him and disfigured him — half his face is 
bashed in. My calm deserts me on the spot. 
Now I know why a brother joins to avenge a 
brother, and a father to take toll for a son. 

Why am I not in the trenches with a bayonet 
in my hand! I despise myself now for a mere 
messenger. Good old Grant ! And I must leave 
him who would never leave me, lying dead by 
the roadside to be picked up — "another cas- 
ualty" — like the thousand others whom I myself 
have passed so callously at times. 

"The chances of war!" How many times I 
have said the words ! Offered them with a shrug 



AUTHOR ASSISTS AT A VICTORY 53 

of the shoulder as consolation on the death of 
a friend. A new pity, a deeper sympathy sweeps 
over me, as I mount reluctantly. They had 
never taken a friend of mine before. Oddly 
enough it never occurred to me that they might 
soon take me. 

3 

It is afternoon now. The dim sun is going 
down. I am sent on a double message that takes 
me through the town. First I am to report to 
the Lahore Division whose Signal Office, I am 
told, is in a cellar; next to the Twenty-fifth 
Brigade. 

Poor Neuve Chapelle ! Already its homes are 
in ruins. Hardly a stone is standing on a stone. 
Instead they are lying all over the streets. I 
have to zig-zag to get through. 

After much meandering and many inquiries — < 
I meet only Indians on my way, and their Eng- 
lish is as fluent as my Hindustanee — I spot the 
blue and white flag that marks the signal serv- 
ice. I deliver my despatch and start off again. 
I have been told that the Brigade is trying to 
force the passage of a bridge somewhere to 



54 THE DAREDEVIL OP THE ARMY 

the Northwest of the Bois de Biez. I find them 
facing a fury of machine grin fire, and depart 
glad to be alive. 

But my mind is still busy with its memories 
of Grant. I forget myself, my machine, my. 
surroundings. I ride along mechanically — I 
must unconsciously have been riding slowly, 
when I am suddenly hailed by a shout. I look 
round and see the grizzled head of an old sol- 
dier stuck out of a half -ruined house. 

"Move a bit faster," he cries, "faster, mate, 
unless you want to click." 

Hardly are the words out of his mouth, when 
he drops with a moan. I turn my head almost 
involuntarily to see whence the shot came. 
Ping! a few sparks fly out of my handle-bars. 
On the spot my investigation ceases, and my 
chance friend is forgotten in concern of myself. 
Jambing my throttle wide open, I sprint for 
home, sending my speed up to some sixty miles 
an hour. But I'm not quick enough. 

With a jerk my foot is lifted from the foot 
rest, as if by an invisible hand. My map case 
which had been lying flat on my back, switches 
round and strikes me in the face. Next there 



AUTHOR ASSISTS AT A VICTORY 55 

comes a sharp rap on my knee, as if some one 
had hit me with a stick. I wobble frightfully, 
but don't lose my equilibrium. Neither do I re- 
lax my speed. At a record rate I regain the 
Signal Office, dismount, and flop on the ground. 
My leg seems as if suddenly paralysed. And 
I notice a patch of blood adorning my pants. 

So a sniper has got me at last ! 

There is no pain, strangely enough, only a 
burning sensation. Again my natural curiosity 
asserts itself. I look at my foot, and find that 
my boot is minus its heel. So that accounts 
for the sudden jerk off the footrest. But why 
should they have caught me on the left side, 
when the shot came from the right? This puz- 
zles me extremely, but there is only one explana- 
tion. 

The bullet could not possibly have passed 
through the little space that the make of my 
machine leaves round the engine. Consequently 
it must have hit the ground underneath and 
ricochetted up to my foot. But even at that it 
must have made some extraordinary curves. 
Another aimed at my back must have hit my 
map case and flipped it round in my face. But 



56 THE DAEEDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

what about my knee? Were they then firing 
from both sides? Impossible! I would have 
noticed that. But there is no one with whom to 
discuss the phenomena. 

Some one is already busily bundling me into 
an ambulance which takes me to the Casualty 
Clearing Station. Being a light case, I am sent 
next day to a Base Hospital. 

The Casualty Clearing Station, for all the 
horrible suggestion of its name, proved to be a 
place of exceeding beauty — a French chateau 
evidently belonging to people of wealth. As 
they lifted me out of the ambulance, I had a 
glimpse of smooth lawns and trees of magni- 
ficent stafeliness. 

It took but a few minutes to .get me on an 
operating table. Only war could have brought 
it to such uses. In times of peace clicking balls 
would have had my place. I could see the bil- 
liard cues still standing along the wall. 

Then as they ripped off my trousers, and 
loosed the bandages, I had my first sensation of 
pain. Began a search then for an elusive bul- 
let which proved to be conspicuous by its ab- 
sence. To help me through the ordeal, I was 



AUTHOR ASSISTS AT A VICTORY 57 

given a glass of milk and soda. Only its colour 
told me its identity. I seemed to have lost my 
sense of taste. 

"Oh, you'll be all right in a few days, sonny," 
the surgeon assured me — he was a splendid 
looking man with a mane of white hair. ' ' Just 
a flesh wound; they missed your knee cap by 
about two mms. ' ' 

He thought he was consoling me, but alas! 
poor man! he was sounding the knell of my 
hopes. My eyes had been turned towards home. 
So they took me to bed, a saddened patient who 
had seen heaven and tasted its joys in anticipa- 
tion, only to have the cup dashed from his lips. 
Instead I got a meal, consisting of broth, toast 
and an orange. That failed to interest me, for 
I had suddenly realised that for thirty-six hours 
I had had no sleep. I needed no rocking that 
night ! 

Next morning I was awakened all too soon. 
The hour was barely 6:30. I opened my eyes 
to behold an orderly standing amiably near my 
bed, bearing a basin of water. How that good- 
natured fellow irritated me with his omcious- 
ness! He would insist on washing me; and I 



58 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

would wash myself. I won out, and imme- 
diately justified his zeal by upsetting the water 
all over the bed. But at any rate I had not been 
treated like a baby ! 

While waiting for the ambulance train to take 
me back of the line, I had my first good look 
at my fellow sufferers. Including myself there 
were eight slight cases, but the others! God! 
that any man should look like them ! Disfigured 
is scarcely the word to apply to them. Gro- 
tesque gargoyles — that was how they seemed to 
me. 

On the train I was placed in a compartment 
with a man who had been a member of the Black 
Watch. One of his legs had been shot off. His 
face had been skinned, Lord knows how ! And 
he had lost his right cheek. And he suffered! 
Oh! how he suffered! The train bumped and 
rattled the whole of the way, as only French 
trains can. It bothered me who was scarcely 
hurt at all. Now it would wring a groan from 
that poor remnant of a man, now a curse, now 
a cry. 

At three that afternoon he died en route. We 
stopped, while they took away his corpse. His 



AUTHOR ASSISTS AT A VICTORY 59 

going left me sick and nauseated, and lonely — 
oh ! so lonely. I think I would have cried with 
homesickness, if a trained nurse had not 
chanced to come by. She stayed with me for 
the greater part of the journey. What would 
soldiers do without these women? But how did 
they stand the sights that I had seen to-day, 
stand them night, noon and morning, as a war 
nurse must? I'm afraid my courage would fail 
me as such a test of human endurance. 

Toward evening we reached Le Trepore, a 
beautiful hospital situated on the French coast. 
Its base is a cliff, some two thousand feet over 
the sea. They told me it had been a summer 
hotel, and a German still owned it. Now resi- 
dent in Switzerland, he was getting 400 francs a 
day for its use by the British Government. 

A perfect army of nurses, doctors and or- 
derlies met us. They were ranged in the big, 
broad hall. Then with a neatness and efficiency 
nothing short of miraculous, they despatched 
us to our different sections. Surgical cases 
here ; medical cases there. How could they dis- 
tinguish us so quickly? 

By ten o'clock we were in our wards, small 



60 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

rooms of four beds each. We were put to bed, 
given hot milk and soothed to sleep. Could it 
be only yesterday that I was listening to the 
roar of guns ? Was it possible that France still 
held such retreats as this? Yet, I suppose, we 
were not more than sixty miles from the actual 
firing line. 

More comfortable than I had ever hoped to be 
outside of my home, I fall asleep, too lazy even 
to look around. I wake up again to be con- 
fronted by a smiling, familiar face. I rub my 
eyes, blink, provoke a boyish laugh. 

Who is it? None other than young Harri- 
son. 

There is a bandage round his head, concealing 
a scalp wound received a few days since in the 
fighting round La Bassee. But how had he got 
to La Bassee? We had given him up for dead 
or captive on the night when he failed to re- 
turn to our farm signal office from his mission 
to Landrecies. 

Oh, yes, he has a story to tell. Here it is, as 
he told it to me. 

As you remember he and Hudson had sepa- 
rated at a cross-roads. As you remember, too, 



AUTHOR ASSISTS AT A VICTORY 61 

there were Uhlans about. Not for him the luck 
of Poole who had shot his way through. A bul- 
let in his back tire decided that. 

"The first I knew of it," he says, "was a skid 
of my rear wheel. The ground seemed to rise 
up and hit me in the face, and then glide away 
again from under me. When I recovered my 
senses, I saw two Boches standing over me. 
Thank the Lord ! I had the wit to stick my fin- 
ger in my mouth, and swallow the despatch 
whole." 

Then ensued a colloquy between the two, not 
a word of which Harrison could understand. 

"We really ought to know their beastly lan- 
guage," he declares. 

Finally one turned to him, went systematic- 
ally through his pockets and then motioned him 
to walk on ahead. For almost an hour he 
trudged along the dusty highway, the Uhlans on 
their horses bringing up the rear. He was hot, 
heart-sick and aching from his fall. But what 
bothered him was the question of where these 
fellows were taking him. He scanned the road 
for landmarks that might indicate his position, 
but none met his eye. They seemed to be cut- 



62 THE DAEEDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

ting across country, skirting villages but still 
within easy distance of the fighting. For the 
boom of the big guns seemed to be .growing 
louder instead of less, and he could hear the 
rattle of exploding shrapnel. 

"It must have been midnight, ,, he says, 
"when we came up in the rear of an infantry 
battalion which from the look of things was set- 
ting out on the march. ' ' 

As they approached, one of the escorts threw 
himself off his saddle and walked towards the 
officer in charge. There ensued another col- 
loquy, equally indistinguishable to Harrison. 
Then 

"Come here," said the officer in perfect Eng- 
lish. 

He approached, and once more they went 
through his pockets. Then he was ordered to 
take off his clothes. 

"I thought the brutes only meant to make 
their search more thorough, so, of course, I com- 
plied very promptly. While I was doing it, one 
of their soldiers, at a sign from the officer, ran 
up to a motor lorry, took off a bundle, and 



AUTHOR ASSISTS AT A VICTORY 63 

brought it over to me. And can you guess what 
was in it?" 

I give it up. 

"A German private's uniform!" 

Harrison stops for a moment as if the mem- 
ory were too much for him. 

"Even when they ordered me to put it on," 
he says, "I could scarcely realise what it meant. 
Can you think of me fighting on their side? I 
suppose they were too far from their base or 
something to send me back, but fancy putting 
me in one of their beastly coats ! And God ! how 
those brutes treated me!" 

Too frank, too courageous to pretend any 
friendship, he glared at the men round. I can 
imagine the look on his young haughty face. 
An Englander! How they were hating us just 
then ! But there was nothing for him to do but 
obey orders. So, with a German pack on his 
back, and the Kaiser's cap on his head, he 
started on his weary march. 

"For a while," goes on Harrison, "I was 
wild with anger, but they soon cured me of that. 
I swung around once, when some one laughed 
behind me, but a prick of a bayonet brought me 



64 THE DAEEDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

to my senses. Then some one kicked me in the 
shins, and another spat at me. I turned on him, 
and a howl went up. But a sharp order from 
the rear stopped that, and then they began 
growling like a pack of surly dogs. Dogs," he 
spits the word out viciously. ' ' That 's the only 
fit name for them. Lord ! if our officers treated 
us as theirs treat them, we'd mutiny. At least, 
I would. ' ' 

A nurse comes in just at this point, and no- 
tices Harrison's flushed face. She threatens 
to separate us, if there is any more excitement. 
Bad for his head, she whispers to me. I sup- 
pose she is right, but I am longing for the end 
of his story. I get it along in the afternoon. 

1 'I don't know how many days we were 
marching," he says. "To me it seemed like 
years. Of course, I was alone all the time. They 
gave me food, but I had to eat by myself. They 
treated me as if I had the plague. Do you 
think," he asks me earnestly, "we'd be as rot- 
ten as that, if we had one of them in such a fix? 
And not a smoke all the time ! I wonder they 
didn't starve me or stick a bayonet through me. 
Sometimes I felt like doing it myself. I'm sur- 



AUTHOR ASSISTS AT A VICTORY 65 

prised I didn't, when I look back on it, but I 
suppose we all like to be alive." 

This is a very much older Harrison than the 
boy I met last. Then he was eighteen; now 
he's thirty. 

"We were way back of the fighting most of 
the time," he goes on, "though we could always 
hear the din of the guns. Then one day it 
seemed to come very near. Next I heard the 
shrapnel again, and then the ping of bullets. 
So I knew we were nearing the real fighting. 
Finally, about three o'clock on an afternoon, I 
saw a village in the distance through the shade 
of thick trees. And I realised that there was a 
battle on in that town. God! it was good to 
know that you were somewhere near, even if I 
was on the wrong side of the line. ' ' 

Then began his real ordeal. He had re- 
entered the fight in the midst of a street scrap, 
one of those contests in which the houses on op- 
posite sides of a street form the lines for the 
opposing troops. 

"Almost before I realised what was happen- 
ing, I found myself in a house. It was dark. 
They had closed those long French shutters, 



€6 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

but presently I was close up beside one. 
Through the cracks I could see the street, very 
narrow and clouded with smoke. I kept on 
peering through — they had forgotten me in the 
excitement. Suddenly a head bobbed up on 
the opposite side. A Tommy! I could have 
shrieked with delight! But the next instant a 
red-black spot appeared on his forehead, and 
then the head disappeared. They'd shot him, 
the brutes. How I loathed them ! ' ' 

Harrison stops for a moment, and there comes 
a glare in his eye. I'm afraid he's getting ex- 
cited. I feel I ought to stop him, but I dread 
the coming of the nurse. The glare dies down, 
and I am relieved. In its place comes a look of 
determination^ 

"I just made up my mind, then," he says, 
"that I would not stay with them. I guessed 
that they'd kill me, if I tried to get across, but I 
decided to risk it anyway." 

The door of the house had been blown open 
by a shell. This gave him his chance. He 
moved toward it, and presently caught sight of 
a window on the opposite side from which glass 



AUTHOR ASSISTS AT A VICTORY 67 

and frame had been shot out. Sprint across and 
climb through — that was his programme. 

"No one was watching me," he explains, 
"and I'm a pretty good runner. So I tucked 
my head under my arm, and dived into the 
street." 

For a moment no one fired, each side prob- 
ably dumbfounded by the sight of this man 
dashing through No Man's Land. Then 

"Rip, rip," spoke up the bullets from both 
sides. 

But the moment had been enough. He was 
almost across. He felt a tickling sensation in 
his shoulder, a stab in his right foot, but he 
managed to muster up his energy. 

"I'm British, British," he shouted for the 
benefit of his own side. "Don't shoot." By 
now the others had recognised him. Too late, 
however. He had dived through the window, 
and was safe on his own ground. 

"When I woke," he finishes, "I was in hos- 
pital, and here I am again. ' ' 



68 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

5 

For five weeks they keep me in the hospital, 
part of the time in bed, part hobbling round on 
crutches. I learn to be thankful that I am not 
crippled for life. While Harrison is with me, 
we have excellent sport. There is one person 
who plays poker, and another who is learning 
golf. Each day the latter comes home with a 
tall story of some extraordinary stroke that he 
has mastered. Finally one fine morning he in- 
vites us all out to watch him, and we stroll out 
to the nine-hole course. 

After much hemming and hawing", primping 
and prancing, he swings. Something hurtles 
through the air. For a moment he watches it 
with the critical eyes of an expert, then turns 
to us triumphantly. 

"Well, what do you say to that?" 

We say nothing, but our glance travels sig- 
nificantly but silently to the earth. His fol- 
lows. There at his feet lies the ball. Perplexed 
he looks at his stick. The head is missing. In 
deference to his cloth, I refrain from repeating 



AUTHOR ASSISTS AT A VICTORY 69 

his comment. But that afternoon he deserts 
the links for the tennis court. 

Soon it is discovered that Harrison's wound 
is not healing properly, so they send him to his 
native English air. I am chumless and conse- 
quently rather cheerless. What an appallingly 
monotonous thing convalescence can be! This 
early-to-bed, early-to-rise existence may be 
healthy, but it fails entirely to appeal to me. I 
begin to long even for the roar of a "Jack 
Johnson.' ' So when at last I get my orders to 
march once more, I leave with a light heart. 

My wound, I find, has placed me in the "vet- 
eran" class, so my duties are to be easy for a 
time. I am sent to the Signal Depot at Abbe- 
ville, to act as instructor to recently arrived 
"rookies." All morning I lecture to them on 
such diverse matters as their duty, the diffi- 
culty of being hygienic under fire ; how they may 
accomplish the first and overcome the latter. 
In the afternoon, with the aid of maps, we plot 
out a line of our own. We pick different points 
to represent different brigades, each about two 
or three miles apart. Then I distribute fake 
messages, and find out how long it will take the 



70 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

novices to deliver them and return to their base. 
Some prove to be splendid messenger boys; 
others get the opportunity of returning to Eng- 
land, with the option of transferring to another 
branch of the service or doing a clerical job at 
home. But these latter are few and far be- 
tween. 

However, this job does not last long. Soon I 
am in excellent condition, a fact of which the 
authorities make me aware by informing me 
that I am to report to a Brigade stationed out- 
side St. Eloi. I am in no hurry now to get to 
the line, so I dawdle luxuriously along the road, 
a beautiful, wooded road over which the sun is 
shining amiably. Why must men mar such 
scenes with smoke and fearful slaughter? You 
see I have lost all my enthusiasm for the noble 
art of war. 

At St. Pol I stop off for a good night's rest 
and a visit to a local "movie" house. I see 
Charlie Chaplin in the "Children's Auto Race," 
and laugh at it with all the abandon of a regu- 
lar "fan." Next morning I am on the road 
by six o'clock, and by eight I have arrived at 
my new station. 



AUTHOR ASSISTS AT A VICTORY 71 

The Hooge show has about begun, so I am 
plunged into the thick of it promptly. The first 
day I ride to Ypres, the sight of which fails to 
revive in me any respect for the great god, 
Mars. But not until next morning do my 
troubles really begin. It is August 1st, on which 
date we lost a recently achieved position by an 
overpowering attack of gas. For the first time 
in my life, I am made familiar with a gas mask, 
not the ingenious contrivance which our troops 
wear now, but a home-made variety that is any- 
thing but comfortable. It consists of a piece of 
saturated cotton wool tied up in a strip of gauze 
which is strapped over the nose and mouth. I 
record a mental resolution that, law or no law, 
no dog of mine will ever again be subjected to 
the indignity of a muzzle. But I have seen some 
men already writhing in an agony of suffoca- 
tion, so I submit to my mask without demur. I 
am inclined to think, however, that it affected* 
my sight as well as my sensation. Else how 
account for the accident that presently over- 
took me? 

I have just rounded the bend of a road. 
Yawning in front of me is a shell-pit, large 



72 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE AEMY 

enough, the Lord knows, to be seen even by a 
blind man. Yet it escapes my notice, until for- 
cibly thrust on it. Plop! I go into it, again 
on top of my machine which, this time, suc- 
cumbs under my weight. I have probably put 
on a few pounds in that excellent hospital. Any- 
way the front wheel crumples up like so much 
cardboard. 

I get to my destination on foot, and return 
by the same method, to be met by an irate offi- 
cer who gives me a very sound rating for the 
negligence to which he attributes my mishap. 
Didn't I know that it was a new machine, and 
very precious 1 ? 

He gives me another, and dismisses me with 
a message and a warning. I start off in a down- 
pour of rain, and am not more than half an 
hour on the road when I come plump into a five- 
ton truck. I try to pass it — on the wrong side 
of the road. To punish me, it crowds me into 
the ditch. In spite of the warning I prefer my 
own safety to that of the machine. I jump clear, 
and the back wheel of the truck passes over the 
gear box of the bike, which also crumples up 
like so much cardboard. I am debating the de- 



AUTHOR ASSISTS AT A VICTORY 73 

sirability of footing the rest of the journey or 
commandeering the truck on the spot, when I 
perceive another motor cycle approaching. The 
rider is good enough to give me a lift. 

I deliver my message and once more return to 
my headquarters on foot. And oh, the dust- 
ing down I get now! My officer — recently ar- 
rived and in consequence most conscientious 
— threatens to report me for carelessness. How 
I should like to be that man's superior for a few 
minutes! I'd teach him to treat "veterans" 
with a little more deference ! The worst of it is 
that I know he is quite right, and I am very 
conscious of the fact that for a seasoned cyclist 
I am doing very badly. 

However circumstance forces him to entrust 
another bike to my bad hands. This time I am 
sent to a small village on the north of Ypres. 
I get through safely and am about to leave the 
Signal Office, when some one stops me. Would 
I take a message to a battery commander lo- 
cated in a dug-out on the main road midway 
between this point and Hooge? I agree, of 
course, on the one condition that my Brigade 
is notified as to my delay. 



74 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

En route I become painfully conscious of the 
extraordinary activity of the Boche guns. The 
shells whir over my head at the rate of sixty 
to the second. I cover my mile or two at about 
the same speed. I get through, get my receipt 
and return in safety. The incident passes from 
my mind. Pass four or five days with the same 
dangerous routine. These are hot times for 
the town of Hooge. At the end of this time our 
Brigade is relieved, and we retire without re- 
luctance for a rest. 

It is a couple of mornings later that a large 
and hirsute sergeant major wakes me up with 
the message that I am to report at eight sharp 
to the Brigade Signal Officer. 

"What for?" 

' ' Don 't know, but you 'd better not be late. ' ' 

That sounds promising, and sets my brain to 
work. Had that blankety-blank rookie officer 
reported me after all? If he had, well, I only 
hoped that we would both survive the war and 
that the gods would be kind enough to make 
his path lie near mine ! Nothing for it, however, 
but to report in time. I do so. The officer looks 
me over. 



AUTHOR ASSISTS AT A VICTORY 75 

"Oh, you're Corcoran?" 

"Yes, sir" — his tone relieves my tension. 

"Well, at 8:30 you're to see the Brigade 
Major. See that you get there on time." 

More mysteries! Again I report promptly, 
and once again am met with a smile. 

"YouVe been recommended for a commis- 
sion," he informs me amiably. I suppose I look 
puzzled, for he adds the explanation: "For 
good work — carrying despatches under fire." 

The commission, he goes on, is to take effect 
from August 17th. It is now August 20th. He 
shakes my hand, and wishes me all sorts of good 
luck. I depart, extremely perplexed. 

What else have I been doing since the be- 
ginning of this business but carrying despatches 
under fire ! What else had I been doing, when 
I received my wound? I decide that strange 
are the ways of the War Office. While I am 
deciding it, my feet lead me involuntarily to 
the Signal Office, where the Signal Officer is still 
sitting. I put the problem up to him. He 
smiles. ' ' 

' ' Do you remember, ' ' he asks, ' ' on August 1st 



76 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

delivering a despatch to a battery commander 
outside Hooge 1 ' ' 

Of course I do, but what of it f 

"Well," he explains, "you may not be aware 
of the fact but six men had tried to carry it be- 
fore you, and every single one of them was 
killed." 

"Good Lord!" the ejaculation comes out un- 
consciously. There can be no doubt of the fact 
that ignorance often brings bliss. 

Thus unwittingly and involuntarily do I be- 
come a hero in spite of myself. Thanks be to 
Mars ! He is henceforth my friend. 

6 

Next morning, August 21st, I receive my dis- 
charge, and am sent back to England for an of- 
ficer's training. Automatically my commission 
is in the Signal Service of the Royal Engineers. 
My orders are to report on arrival at the Sig- 
nal Depot at Fenny Stratford, where I find Lt. 
Col. Lister as 0. C. at the time. He grants me 
five days' leave in which I may see my friends 
and get my new uniform. 

I rush down to Devonshire where my people 



AUTHOR ASSISTS AT A VICTORY 77 

are just then, and live for the first three days 
in a blur of hand-shaking, hugging, kissing, 
questioning, from which I finally escape to Lon- 
don. Follows a hectic time with the tailor, a 
round of dining and dancing. I find no let-up 
in the old life here. But oh, how the good time 
flies! 

Then on the fifth morning, togged out in my 
new trim dress, I report for duty at my station. 
I have quite decided, of course, by this time 
that I shall have at least four months at home. 
They can't turn out completed officers in a 
shorter period than that. So I begin to plan for 
myself all sorts of pleasant surprises. Let all 
those eager youngsters who are so anxious to 
get across, hurry over, if they want to. I'll 
take my time. I am quite aware of the fact that 
the Boche will be still waiting there, and far be 
it from me to unduly hasten the meeting ! 

At Fenny Stratford, an adjutant takes me in 
hand, and inculcates the first principles of such 
important trifles as esprit de corps. Then he 
turns me over to the officer in charge of the 
school. He puts me through my paces to see 
what I know. Ever done any telegraphy? Ever 



78 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

heard of such things as circuits ? I inform him 
that I have taken an electrical course at Cam- 
bridge. Which elicits an exclamation of pleased 
surprise. 

"Then, of course, you've been in touch with 
the signallers all the time in France. You know 
about cable laying, air line rigging, etc. ? ' ' 

I allow that I am at least initiated into these 
intricate rites. 

"Ever ridden a horse?" he asks me next. 

"Well, I ranched in Bolivia for a few years." 

"Good! It won't take you any time to get 
onto the mounted drill. I should think you'll 
be through in about ten days ! ' ' 

Through? What did the man mean? I don't 
know what sensation my expression signified, 
but he goes on pleasantly, in his reassuring 
voice. 

"Oh, yes, another three weeks ought to see 
you back on the line ! ' ' 

My Lord! why haven't I learned to keep my 
mouth shut? Once more my Spanish castle 
comes tumbling about my ears. I always 
thought I was a fool ; now I know it. 

My stay at the Depot is not prolonged over 



AUTHOR ASSISTS AT A VICTORY 79 

two days. Then I am hustled off to Haynes Park, 
Bedfordshire, and put into a drill class that has 
commenced the same day. I get a mount. Poor 
beast! If he were mine, I'd either shoot him 
or pension him for the rest of his natural life. 
However, having taken one look at my sergeant 
major riding master, I keep all such reflections 
to myself. What a martinet the man is ! And 
heavens ! what a voice and tongue ! 

"Now, gentlemen," he bawls, before begin- 
ning the class. "You're 'ere to learn to ride an 
'orse, and I'm 'ere to learn ye to do it. I know 
very well as 'ow ye 're officers, but the arf hour 
ye 're with me, please remember ye 're my pupils. 
Now then, all who think they can ride, ride out 
in front. ' ' 

For a few seconds I hesitate. The man has 
cowed me. Then I take a chance with two 
others. 

"Where did you learn to ride?" he asks me 
sarcastically. 

"In Ireland and then in Bolivia." 

"Oh!" he turns to the man next me, a chap 
named Finney. 



80 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

"I'm from Northwest Canada,' ' Finney in- 
forms him. 

"I ain't inquiring about your birthplace. 
I'm asking if you can ride." 

What a terrible man ! But Finney is not ter- 
rified. 

"Well, I've been at it twenty years," he re- 
plies with a drawl. 

The sergeant major turns to the third. Poor 
chap ! he had learned in a London riding school. 
We are put through our paces in front of the 
class. Finney and I manage to qualify, but the 
rider from London! He is informed quite 
audibly that when it comes to managing horses, 
he may be an excellent master of his mother's 
clothes horse. 

As the first six of the ten days are devoted to 
teaching the others to sit astride, Finney and 
I are dismissed. We have some grand gallops 
all over the country. What a magnificent horse- 
man that man was ! I doubt if I have ever seen 
his equal. Then for the last four days we are 
told to chip in, and pick up the mounted drill 
required of a signal officer. It isn't much, and 
the horses, well trained brutes, carry out the 



AUTHOR ASSISTS AT A VICTORY 81 

orders on their own account. That over, we 
are handed our certificates — that is, all of us 
who manage to qualify. Follow seven days' 
leave, another oasis in the desert, from which we 
return to be placed on the list for the overseas 
draft. 

For a week I do such routine duty as that 
of orderly officer or paying billets. This last is 
incidental only to certain depots and camps. 
Where the number of men is too great for the 
regular accommodation, they are placed with 
private people round, a regulation which adds 
from fifteen to twenty-two shillings weekly to 
the coffers of the families chosen for the honour. 
An officer is detailed to distribute the money. 

At the end of the week, I am chosen with 
several others for the doubtful honour of a 
Cook's Tour. This Tour consists of a two 
weeks' visit to the firing line, and its object is 
to give young officers an idea of their future 
duties, before they are entrusted with a section 
of their own. At the conclusion of the tour, they 
return to England, — sometimes. My case, of 
course, came among the exceptions. Some peo- 
ple have none of the luck ! 



CHAPTER III 

IN WHICH THE TELEPHONE PROVES ITS UTILITY AND 
INSTABILITY 

1 

Our Cook's Tour, not being supervised by the 
experienced gentleman himself, fell apart very 
early in the game. In fact when I left Boulogne, 
I was a party of one, with a ticket for the First 
Army Headquarters stationed near Bethune. 
In that well-shelled town I found a host of de- 
termined tradesmen trying their best to carry 
on business as usual. A very lively business it 
was ! Whenever the vivacious barber at the cor- 
ner of the square laid his razor against my well- 
lathered cheek, I began to wonder whether a 
"whizzbang" would not finish the job for him. 
But his hand was none the less steady for that 
possibility, nor the flow of his language the less 
fluent. Too bad I could not catch a word of what 
he said! Not that he minded! No, indeed, he 
kept right on talking, thereby making me feel 
quite at home. 

82 



TELEPHONE PROVES ITS UTILITY 83 

My stay in his town, however, was destined 
to be short. In a few days Mr. Cook decided to 
send me further. This time my ticket was for 
a point nearer the line, the rear of the now fa- 
mous town of Loos. Just then we were pre- 
paring, as you say, to "put the place on the 
map." My part in the preparations was to be 
contributed under the title of Supernumerary 
Signal Officer to the Seventh Division. 

It was early — too early — on a September 
morning, when I started on my journey from 
Bethune. The road I was to take launched out 
from the great square, a peculiarity it had in 
common with about a hundred others. Round 
and round I flew on the motor bike that fur- 
nished my means of transit, but no distinguish- 
ing mark of my street could I see. Meantime 
the black sky had turned to grey, and the .grey 
to green, before my eye finally lighted on a 
sleepy and sullen sentry who had probably been 
admiring my gyrations for the past hour. In 
reply to my questions, he raised a lazy finger 
and jerked it over his shoulder. In no meas- 
ured language, I tried to indicate what I thought 
of him and his square. Rotten, tricky place ! I 



84 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

hoped the Boche would get it, but somehow they 
never get the things you could best spare. 

Arrived at my destination, I found a batman 
and billet awaiting me. My quarters were to 
be in an old French farmhouse on the main 
road between Vermelles and Noyelles. 

"Well, here I am, no longer a free-lance but a 
fixture in the fighting forces, with my own small 
but significant part to play in the gory game. 
But before I proceed to describe the action, let 
me picture to you the mise en scene. 

2 

Being a typical French farmhouse, it is also 
typically Irish. That is to say, judged by the 
conventions of most other countries, it puts the 
cart before the horse. The first object to as- 
sail your senses — it attacks two at a time — is 
the garbage pile which the family heaps up in 
public. This flanks one side of the rambling 
yard. Most of the remainder is given over to 
a species of mudbath, not to be recommended, 
however, for cases of rheumatism. In it the 
non-human live stock disport themselves daily. 
At the back of this yard, and fronting the gate, 



TELEPHONE PROVES ITS UTILITY 85 

comes the house, with its various adjuncts. 
Lastly there is the family which emerges to 
view by slow degrees. 

There is Madame, the stocky, stolid, and dark- 
eyed, around whom in the absence — and perhaps 
in the presence — of Monsieur, all activities 
pivot. There is another Madame, presumably 
her mother; and another, still older — but here 
we stop. The degrees of this menage could be 
distinguished only by a genealogist. But, as 
an outsider, I should say that at least four gen- 
erations lived under that roof. One of the 
youngest is the first to meet my eye. 

I was riding toward the house, when the 
strangest little ragbag swung round a corner 
into my sight. It was his whistle that first at- 
tracted my attention. With head thrown back 
and chest thrown out, obviously in imitation of 
his friend the Tommy, he was shrilling not un- 
musically the then popular tune: 

' i Hold your hand out, naughty boy ! ' ' 

As he came nearer, I was able to distinguish 
his wardrobe. On his head was a Tommy's cap, 
probably rescued from a rubbish pile. Round 
his body was a Tommy's groundsheet in which 



86 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

three holes had been made to allow egress for 
his head and arms. On his feet were some gum- 
boots several sizes too large for him, kept in 
place by some dirty spiral puttees. And around 
his neck — it took some time to distinguish this 
ornament — was a circular loaf, one of those 
horseshoe affairs that you see so often on the 
tables of France. Jean — or was it Joseph? — 
was returning from market. 

I think I recognised that loaf later when I 
sat down to table in the spotless kitchen and 
living room of the family. But did I or my 
fellow officers remark the fact to Madame ? Not 
we ! We would not dare, even if we so desired. 
But we did not desire. All three of us are old- 
timers in this show, and such details as a little 
dirt from Jean's — or is it Joseph's? — neck do 
not in the least disturb our excellent appetites. 

There is Harry Wills, a lieutenant from the 
Norfolk Regiment, one of the earliest of the 
"old contemptibles." Shattered nerves had 
sent him home to England. Now he's here to 
finish his "rest-cure" amid the autumn amuse- 
ments at Loos. Little joke on the part of the 
B. A. M. C. ! In contrast to him comes Collins, 



TELEPHONE PROVES ITS UTILITY 87 

a second Lieutenant from South America. A 
shell burst near Collins two days ago, making 
a crater as big as a house. 

"Damn nuisance !" said Collins, turning non- 
chalantly around. "There was a nice shady 
spot to smoke in, under those trees." 

I share a room with Collins for a night. Then 
my batman, a wily beggar who can manage even 
Madame, secures an outhouse for my special ac- 
commodation. I call it an outhouse, but in re- 
ality it consisted of four walls and a roof. The 
floor is of cobble stones, but they are beautifully 
cool. On this my bed is erected, and I live en 
prince. In other words, I have privacy — a 
prized possession. 

Last evening I was sitting here, trying to 
write home, when a perfect chorus of voices, 
male and female, floated on the evening breezes 
to my ear. They came from the direction of a 
field near by. I peeped out, and beheld this 
pleasant scene, calculated to gladden the hearts 
of the believers in the entente cordiale. 

On a ditch sat Angele, eldest daughter of the 
house, as yet scarcely sixteen. With her was a 
brother and round her three Tommies. In in- 



88 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

harmonious unison they were "rendering" the 
popular air, known to us as "We won't be home 
till morning." Angele and Frere gave it in 
the words of their native land, "Malbroeck s'en 
va t-en guerre ' ' and not a verse did they miss, 
nor a line. But the Tommies, I noticed, though 
trying to prove their right to the song, knew 
no more than the first line which they repeated 
ad lib. 

"Angele! Angele!" shrilled a voice across 
the yard. It was Madame, interrupting the con- 
cert. Eldest daughters have little time for such 
indulgence. Immediately Angele hopped off 
her perch, and presently I heard one of those 
seemingly interminable and unintelligible mono- 
logues rendered by the mother of the house. 
Was she scolding or merely ordering? It might 
have been either. I confess Madame always 
baffled me completely. Like all foreigners, I 
had thought of French women as flighty. Yet 
she, a very typical sample, I am told, of her sex, 
was the stolidest human being I ever beheld. I 
was in her kitchen on one occasion when a shell 
burst in the yard, damaging the wall of the 
house and breaking every pane of glass. She 



TELEPHONE PBOVES ITS UTILITY 89 

was cooking her everlasting soup at the time. 
She looked at the kitchen window, staring si- 
lently for a few moments at the hole, and then 
calmly proceeded with her stirring. Not a 
sound, not even a sigh, escaped her. But I 
should not like to be near by when Monsieur 
returns to lift the burden from her shoulders, 
when the terrible tension at length relaxes, and 
releases nature from its strain. I should be in- 
clined to predict that she will celebrate the oc- 
casion by a wild burst of hysterics. Meantime 
there is not a tear in her eye. More power to 
her, as they say in my country ! Though I can't 
fathom, I can at least admire her. 

But to come back to the business on hand. As 
I have said, we are in the throes of preparation 
for one of the greatest pushes in the war. My 
duty, as Supernumerary Signal Officer, is to 
superintend the laying of cable that will insure 
telephonic communication both behind and on 
the line. 



Our playful friends, the infantrymen, have 
their own names for our corps. They call us 



90 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

the ' ' Iddy-Umpties ' ' or the ' ' Buzzers. ' ' To the 
War Office we are known as the R. E. Signallers, 
and you may recognise us easily by the blue 
and white bands that adorn our strong left 
arms. 

A much-abused person is the " buzzer." In 
the world military he occupies much the same 
position as that enjoyed in the civil community 
by our friend, the "Hello girl." Like her he 
is accustomed to all degrees of language, from 
the zero to the boiling or bubbling point. Un- 
like her he is untrained to the niceties of eti- 
quette ; he has not learned, so to speak, to turn 
the other cheek. "Please" and "thank you" do 
not rise naturally to his lips, when an impa- 
tient conversationalist consigns him to torrid 
regions. Indeed, at times he is apt to recipro- 
cate the wish and he allows you small chance of 
turning to the "manager" for relief. Such a 
desire would probably provoke on his part a loss 
of hearing. Still, as I have said, he is much 
abused; also he is much used in the modern 
army. 

His headquarters is a Signal Office, desig- 
nated by a Blue and White flag. His habitat 



TELEPHONE PROVES ITS UTILITY 91 

may be anywhere according to the exigencies of 
the moment. The Signal Office, however, is 
always attached to a unit, usually to a Brigade 
Headquarters from which all activities radiate. 
Hence cable links up communications with the 
Battalion .Headquarters and with Company 
Headquarters all along the actual trenches. 
Hence airline connects up the Brigade with Di- 
vision Headquarters, and Division Headquar- 
ters with Corps, and Corps with Army and 
Army with General Headquarters and G. H. Q. 
with the War Office. In short it is the 
" buzzer's" business to link up the whole line. 
He is an indispensable person, as you may see. 
But for him you would never read those daily 
bulletins telling you what the troops are doing 
on the front. A ubiquitous person, he is every- 
where at once, letting the right hand of the 
army know what the left hand is doing, and 
letting the world know what both are accom- 
plishing at the same time. 

This story, however, not being concerned with 
the High Command, we will return forthwith 
to the Brigade Headquarters to which my par- 
ticular section was attached. Here the per- 



92 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

sonnel of the Signal Office consisted of telegraph 
clerks, telephone operators, lineman, messen- 
gers and despatch riders. A subaltern, assisted 
by a senior sergeant, acted as "boss." In con- 
junction with him but not subordinate to him, 
worked two cable sections, two airline sections 
and a wireless section, each controlled also by a 
subaltern. 

Brigade Headquarters, naturally, controls the 
whole Brigade, which means as a rule that it 
commands about three miles of actual fighting 
front. All its business is transacted over the 
telephone, the operators taking their turn at 
the Signal Office and on the line just as the 
"Hello" girls do in New York City. In the 
trenches these operators are as a rule infan- 
trymen, the most intelligent of the company 
being chosen for the job. (Loud cries of con- 
tradiction from the infantrymen!) The most 
intelligent, indeed, are none too good. Seated 
in dug-outs which also fly the blue and white 
flag, they are under the control of the R. E. offi- 
cers who see that the work is done properly and 
the lines always kept in repair. 



TELEPHONE PROVES ITS UTILITY 93 

3 

When Fritz is taking his intermittent naps 
and sometimes even when he is about his 
Kaiser's business, the work of these trench 
operators consist in conveying such messages 
as the non-arrival that morning of the colonel's 
clean socks, the non-appearance of the com- 
pany's plum and apple for tea, with an oc- 
casional detail concerning the havoc of a Boche 
shell. The speed of his work is, as a rule, about 
fifteen words to the minute. The regular R. E. 
signaller's is anywhere between twenty-five and 
thirty-five. He, of course, is a professional. 
The instrument on which the message is sent 
can be used either for telephone or telegraph. 
The operator decides which shall be used. It 
depends largely on his mood or his attitude 
of mind toward the sender. 

"When, however, our side has decided to get 
busy, a new batch of signallers is prepared for 
the event. Then as the waves of the infantry 
roll over No Man's Land, these men bring up 
the rear, reeling out cable as they go. Behind, 
the old operator remains at his old position. 



94 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

If a Boche trench is taken, then a new oper- 
ator is there installed. He connects up with 
his old trench, which connects up with the Bat- 
talion Headquarters which connects up with the 
Brigade which is thus connected with the at- 
tackers. When a big "push" is on, the same 
principle is pursued, with the difference that 
the work is done on an infinitely larger scale. 

Should the cable that is thus laid collapse for 
any reason — there are many usually why it 
should — then the safety of the whole section is 
threatened. If Battalion Headquarters and 
through Battalion, Brigade, is not acquainted 
with the movements of the troops; if they do 
not know the strength of the resistance, the ap- 
proximate number of the casualties; the need 
for reinforcements, whether of men or guns, 
then the position of the Tommies is highly pre- 
carious. Suppose the attack has been success- 
ful and they are ready to advance further, then 
reserves must be brought up behind. Suppose 
the line is breaking and there is danger of their 
being driven back, then assistance must be 
rushed to them without delay. But suppose the 
communications give way, and their needs can- 



TELEPHONE PROVES ITS UTILITY 95 

not be made known ! Well, the inference is too 
obvious to need mention. The signallers, as I 
have said, are the " nerves" of the modern 
army. Without them it is paralysed, and might 
as well be dead. 

Later in this story we shall see what part the 
wireless plays in the supplying of the nervous 
system. For the present our business is with 
the cable section. It is to this that I was at- 
tached at Loos both before and after the scrap. 
My job was the superintending of the laying of 
the cables, seeing that they were put in the 
safest places, that they were mended when cut, 
that they were not earthed, thus making con- 
versation undistinguishable. A nerve-racking 
job, a nasty^ job, rather tiresome and thankless, 
but entirely necessary, as are so many jobs in 
this romantic business of making war. 

Now the Engineers, unfortunately, are not the 
only people who find it necessary to lay cable 
for the purpose of signalling in France. A lit- 
tle incident will explain the necessity for mak- 
ing this statement. Casual infantrymen are 
apt to confuse skilled with unskilled labor, and 
lay the sins of the latter at the door of the first. 



96 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

Needless to say, we are the party with the griev- 
ance. 

I was invited to dinner one evening with the 
Brigade mess. For twenty minutes we waited 
patiently in a sort of ante-room for the arrival 
of the Brigadier, in whose absence we could not 
eat. He is a red-faced man at his coolest mo- 
ments. When he arrived, his complexion riv- 
alled that of a lobster or a beet boiled to a turn. 

"G — d — it! I'd hang every one of them, if 
I had my way," he spluttered, as he strode 
down the room. 

" What's the matter, Sir?" enquired some 
venturesome person. 

" Matter? Matter?" he re-echoed the ques- 
tion. "What do you think, Sir? That b 

cable, of course. Outrage! That's what it is, 
leaving it lying about like that. Hit me first 
on the head. Then caught me on the foot and 
threw me headlong into a trench." 

His attire, to say the least, was disordered. 
Some one glanced significantly at me, but I 
merely elevated my chin to express my supreme 
indifference. There was no opportunity at the 



TELEPHONE PROVES ITS UTILITY 97 

moment to explain, but I take occasion to do so 
now. 

That cable, my friend, belonged not to us but 
to the gunners. They use it to connect their 
batteries with the Forward Observation Officer ; 
also with the battalion commanders. Their 
method is to string it up on poles, each about 
eighty yards apart. Should a shell cut it, or 
should it become broken in another way, it will 
naturally sag to the earth. Do they mend it? 
Not they ! They have no reputation to sustain 
in the matter. So their simple method is to let 
it sag, string up another. This in turn is 
broken. They let that sag, string up another, 
and so on ad infinitum, until finally their poles 
assume the complicated appearance of the mast 
of a sailing ship gone mad. 

As an officer aptly expressed it one evening: 

"The Boches may rush our first line; they 
may penetrate our second and pierce our third, 
but, as long as the gunner's cable is somewhere 
in the rear, England can always feel herself se- 
cure." 

And now let me describe our more skilled and 
elaborate method. 



98 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

From General Headquarters up to Brigade 
Headquarters our telephones are connected by 
airline, a comparatively stationary and safe 
method of communication. From Brigade 
Headquarters to Battalion Headquarters — that 
is, from two or three miles behind the line right 
up to the trenches — cable has to be used for 
various reasons. The chief reason lies in the 
fact that it is the quickest and easiest method, 
easily laid, easily raised, according to the ex- 
igencies of the moment. These two points are, 
of course, movable. In fact, they may be 
changed within an hour. 

A cable detachment consists of ten men, eight 
horses — four riders, four draft — and a wagon, 
the leader and the near wagon horse having 
drivers mounted. The wagon carries a number 
of poles for bridging crossings and four drums 
of cable, each containing five miles of insulated 
copper wire. The inside end of each drum is 
connected with the wagon and contact is made 
with a telephone on the boxseat. 

Suppose the cable is to be laid between points 
A and B. The loose end is paid out and man 
No. 8 (Nos. 9 and 10 being mounted on the 



TELEPHONE PROVES ITS UTILITY 99 

draft horses) connects it with a telephone and 
remains at point A, while the wagon moves off 
at a trot. 

Man No. 1, who is mounted, now rides on 
ahead, to pick out the most suitable road to 
travel. Man No. 2 works the telephone on the 
wagon, constantly keeping in touch with point 
A. Man No. 3 sits in the wagon, easing the 
cable off the drum. Nos. 4 and 5 sit in the 
wagon, armed with mathook and spade, ready 
at any moment they reach a crossing to jump 
down and dig a small trench. Nos. 6 and 7, 
both riders, bring up the rear, each carrying a 
crook stick. This consists probably of a broom- 
handle fitted at the end with an iron hook. 

Should the route lie along a straight, un- 
shaded road, then the duty of the rear riders 
consists in seeing that the cable does not fall 
directly in the line of traffic. Usually they push 
it into the ditch. Should a hedge, a small tree 
or some other standing object cross their path, 
then the crook comes into play. With a lift of 
his arm, No. 6 swings the cable aloft; should 
he miss, No. 7 takes on the job. If the road 
takes a curve, giving the cable a tendency to 



100 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

drag, then these two dismount and tie it at the 
side either to a branch or a stake stuck in the 
ground. 

Suppose they come to a crossing of no great 
size, then out hop Nos. 4 and 5, dig a trench 
usually about four inches deep, and bury the 
cable to preclude any danger of its being cut 
by a passing vehicle or a horse hoof. 

Having buried it, they then tie each end to 
some object near by, so that the cable cannot 
be pulled out of its grave. This operation com- 
pleted, the wagon moves on again. 

Should the crossing, however, be large, or 
should a brook come in their path, then the cable 
is not buried but borne overhead. In this case 
it becomes the duty of Nos. 4 and 5, assisted by 
Nos. 6 and 7, to erect two poles, each about 
eighteen feet high, on either side of the crossing 
or water — an operation that takes about forty- 
five seconds. The rate at which cable can be 
laid by this method averages about six miles 
an hour. 

In the trenches, naturally, this is out of the 
question. Horses and wagons have no room 
here, so a "man pack" takes their place. Four 



TELEPHONE PEOVES ITS UTILITY 101 

men go to make up this detachment. No. 1, 
whose duty it is to pay off the cable, carries his 
equipment strapped to his back. It is done up 
now in a reel, consisting of about 1,800 yards 
of 18-gauge, a smaller one than that used in the 
wagon set. 

No. 2 here leads the way, fixing little wooden 
pegs in the sides of the trenches. No. 1 comes 
next, paying out the cable as he goes. Then 
come Nos. 3 and 4, who tie up the cable to the 
wooden pegs affixed by No. 2. 

Shell-fire may at any moment, of course, cut 
through this cable, and various devices have 
been introduced to lessen the danger of the com- 
munications being destroyed thereby. For one 
thing, the cable is always laid in loops, one of 
which may be trusted to preserve the contact, 
though all the others be cut. This has been 
found effectual even in severe fighting. 

But no method has yet been discovered to 
lessen the dangers nearer home. Even in the 
trenches it is necessary at times to appeal to 
the gods to save from our friends as well as 
our enemies. For often the sight of our cables 
remind a strolling infantryman that his shoe is 



102 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

sadly in need of a string. Snip ! and our cable 
has supplied one. 

Such accidents, combined with the unusual ac- 
tivity of Fritz, served to enliven the monotony 
of the days before Loos. There were others, 
however, more mysterious that also disturbed 
our peace, the disconcerting cause of which we 
discovered only after much damage was done. 

A few hundred yards from our house there 
was a curve in the road, prettily bordered on 
one side by a clump of thick bushes. Beyond 
this curve stood a small hut, tenanted by an old 
shepherd who seemed to be wholly doddering 
and half dumb. His flock, sadly depleted by the 
advent of shells, he used to tend in a field ad- 
joining the hut, the same field in which stood 
the clump of bushes. 

Now this road led directly to the back of 
our line, so parties of Tommies and their offi-j 
cers were daily tramping over it on their way 
to and from the trenches. But not a party 
passed for days without losing an officer. Usu- 
ally he was shot in the back. 

For a time we stood it. Then an enterpris- 
ing young subaltern decided to take the matter 



TELEPHONE PROVES ITS UTILITY 103 

in hand. Eeceiving the necessary permission he 
and a friend took refuge in the shaded ditch 
that bordered the shepherd's field. For their 
trip they chose an hour when they knew a party 
of men would be passing along the road toward 
the line. 

Crouched in their corner, they could hear the 
tramp of the Tommies' feet, an occasional 
whistle and the buzz of conversation. It came 
nearer and something stirred in the bushes. Up 
crept the two, keeping close to the wall. 

Presently the men swung round the curve. 
As they did so, an arm became visible in the 
clump, holding a rifle in position. Then the sub- 
altern threw discretion to the winds. With a 
bound he was in the bushes and the rifle was in 
his hands. The next instant he was grappling 
with the old shepherd. But the odds were on 
his side. 

The old chap was a spy, and the handle of his 
harmless crook which it is the custom for shep- 
herds in France to carry supplied the rifle that 
had been shooting our precious officers. But he 
had shot his last. The subaltern saw to that. 



104 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

4 

Well, it is September 24th, and our prepara- 
tions are complete. All the cables have been 
laid; all the men been notified of the positions 
they are to occupy to-morrow. The particular 
sector whose communications are in our hands 
lies facing the famous quarries north of Hul- 
luch. God grant we may be occupying them by 
next sun-down! The infantryman is equally 
ready for his task. In my travels along the 
trenches, superintending my own men, I have 
caught glimpses of the efforts he is making. 
Here is a party filling piles of sandbags ; there 
another serving out ammunition and bombs. A 
third is concealing the long iron gas cylinders. 
We have adopted the Hun tactics at last. It is a 
difficult but all-important matter to get these 
cylinders in a safe place. Should a shell hit 
them, we would be ''hoist with our own petard." 
Finally it is decided to bury them under the 
firing-step, the most convenient and best-pro- 
tected spot in the trench. 

At 7 :30 to-morrow morning the Loos ball will 
begin. The band has already begun to play. 



TELEPHONE PROVES ITS UTILITY 105 

For the past month the artillery has been tuning 
up. Over the seven-mile front on which our ad- 
vance is to be made, thirteen hundred guns have 
been pounding out their promise, sending inter- 
mittent samples of the music we may expect at 
the rate of three hundred rounds per gun. Now 
the intervals are growing shorter between 
items; the rounds have increased to five hun- 
dred. They are rending the very sky with 
their screams. 

Meantime, of course, Fritz has not been back- 
ward. He is preparing a little pleasantry of his 
own. 

Whizz ! bang ! The little hill behind our house 
has suddenly been transformed into a hollow. 
Pip! Squeak! A neighbour's hut is levelled, 
and in its place yawns a crater containing hut 
and inhabitants. Madame, the stolid, is already 
poorer by the loss of a barn, and our men are 
looking for other billets. Scully, my batman, 
robbed of his home, decides to share the one he 
has procured for me. Like the gentleman in 
the scriptures, he takes up his bed and walks. 
Now his straw is lying in a corner on my nice 
clean-cobbled floor. But he 's comfortable. Lit- 



106 THE DAEEDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

tie accidents don't disturb him. For to-night 
he will have the outhouse practically to himself. 
I've decided to spend the evening with some 
friends in a neighbouring village. As there is 
prospect of some fun, I give him the tip that I 
may not be home before morning. He receives 
the news without any perceptible trace of sor- 
row. Poor chap! he's to regret it before long. 

Day has not yet dawned when I start on my 
return journey. I feel I should like a little sleep 
before the scrap. A sudden silence has sprung 
up all along the line, and I speed up to take 
advantage of this unaccustomed lull. But I have 
not yet reached home when the storm again 
breaks loose. The reason, of course, is obvious. 
All along the roads men are tramping to the 
trenches, to relieve those others who have been 
working for the past ten days. Fritz, naturally, 
is trying to thin their ranks. 

Crump! Crump! Crump! So it goes all 
round. The day is breaking, and in the distance 
I see my billet. As I look, I see smoke. Lord ! 
have they hit the house f I enter the yard, and 
the grey light reveals a heap of stones on the 
left. My room ! I go nearer, to investigate the 



TELEPHONE PROVES ITS UTILITY 107 

damage. Evidently the shell had hit the ground 
just outside, causing the wall on one side to 
collapse. The corner where my bed stood has 
crumpled in. In the other, Scully's straw is 
lying undisturbed. I look round, wondering 
where he can be, and presently discover him 
amid the ruins. Poor chap ! He had taken ad- 
vantage of my tip to crawl into my more com- 
fortable quarters. He has paid for the small 
pleasure with his life. But suppose I had been 
careful and stayed at home for the sake of my 
sleep? Well, evidently in this case the gods are 
rewarding the prodigal. Let us hope they will 
be equally kind on the morrow. Collins takes 
me in for the few hours remaining. By five I 
am out again to report to the Signal Office, 
where I am detailed to look after the wiring of 
a sector of trenches between two points north 
of Vermelles. 

Already the activity of the artillery is so vio- 
lent that the sky overhead resembles a sheet of 
steel. So thick and fast do the shells come that 
they seem a solid grey mass. Our ears are buz- 
zing with the whir of their flight. Round us, 
too, explosions are sending up their spray of 



108 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

smoke. Our eyes begin to ache and our tongues 
have an acrid taste. Can a man preserve his 
mind amid such confusion of the senses? 

I get my answer on entering the next trav- 
erse. This is the scene that meets my gaze: 
On the firing-step an altar has been erected. At 
it stands a Catholic priest. He is just finishing 
the morning mass. Round him on their knees 
are grouped a body of Irishmen, caps in hand, 
their bent heads betraying the reverence in their 
hearts. By no sign, not even a side-glance at 
the havoc all round, do they show any interest 
in the peril of their position. Some faces are 
grim; all are grave, but not one shows a trace 
of nervousness, much less of terror. For the 
moment they seem to be lifted by some super- 
human force above the physical horror of their 
surroundings. 

And these are the same men who, a little later 
in the fight, are to quail before the torrent of 
the terrible liquid fire. Big, brawny and brave, 
they hesitated for a few seconds on the sight 
of this new instrument of torture. Then out 
rushed their Commanding Officer, waving their 
own flag. 



TELEPHONE PROVES ITS UTILITY 109 

1 'Up Irish, and at them!" he roared above 
the guns. 

And with their war cry on their lips, they 
answered the challenge. 

"Fag a' bealach!" they shouted, as they leapt 
forward to the attack, and though they fell like 
saplings under the sweep of a forest fire, the 
Germans had to yield before their fury. 

''Wild beasts" was the name a Boche pris- 
oner applied to them later, but there is no evi- 
dence of ferocity in them now. The mass over, 
they rise from their knees, shake themselves 
with a sigh, straighten up, and stroll off to their 
positions. Magnificent men, morally and physi- 
cally, they can ill be spared by their small coun- 
try, but of such war is reaping a heavy harvest. 

It is 7 :20. In ten minutes our artillery will 
lift the curtain and our men will go over the 
top. I am standing in a trench, directing some 
wiring, and incidentally watching the men who 
will make the fight. Territorials these, ama- 
teurs at the game, it is their first dip in the 
baptism of blood. It is curious to see how the 
different types react to the trial. 

There is Charlie, who before the war was 



110 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

somebody's indifferent clerk with somewhat 
more energy than ability. When the first wave 
of patriotism struck his country, Charlie was 
on the top crest of the billow, bellowing with all 
his little might. An excitable gentleman, he is 
finding it hard to control his nerves. Now he 
sits on the firing step, grinning inanely. Now 
he walks up and down, cursing in a low tone. 
Presently a voice interrupts his soliloquy. 

''Give us a match," say Bill, and the hand 
that takes it is steady. Bill is the calm cuss 
who enlisted as a matter of course, without en- 
thusiasm, with no evidence of any ardour. Now 
he is smoking his pipe, but I notice that his eye 
wanders and always in the same direction, with 
an expression of anxiety and some sympathy. 
I follow his glance, and mine falls on Jim. He 
is sitting on the ground, white-faced but quiet. 
His sensitive features are positively twisted 
with terror, and between his lips hangs a cig- 
arette that has been lit but is now dead. 

''Have a light?" Bill says to him presently, 
and a mechanical smile lights up the fine face. 
Jim is one of those imaginative, highly strung 
lads who joined up from a sheer sense of duty, 



TELEPHONE PROVES ITS UTILITY 111 

and who is seeing the thing through in a posi- 
tive agony of fear. 

"Up with you, boys," comes the order at last. 

A quiver seems to run through the traverse, 
and instantly all the men are on their feet. 
Charlie makes for the firing-step with the un- 
certain gait of a blind man. Bill's walk is slow 
and deliberate. For a moment Jim holds back. 
Will the boy funk at the last lap? I can see 
the officer eyeing him, and again there is sym- 
pathy in the- glance. But again his soul nerves 
him, though his heart fails. With a sudden 
rush, as if possessed by some demon of deter- 
mination, the boy makes for the firing-step. Up 
he climbs, over the top, and is out ahead of the 
rest, the bravest man of the whole bunch. 

5 

Soon we are advancing at a rate which even 
the most optimistic would not have dared to 
hope for this morning. Trench after trench is 
taken by our men. We signallers are extend- 
ing our lines forward. But the task becomes 
more difficult every moment. Shells, machine 
guns, even rifle fire are thinning our ranks, and 



112 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

at the same time cutting our cables. To keep 
the established communications intact and at 
the same time lay new lines would require dou- 
ble our usual complement of workers. We are 
already reduced to half. 

But that is not our only problem. Elaborate 
systems of communication trenches had been 
dug to facilitate all movements of troops. Sign- 
boards stuck up all along the line gave direc- 
tion in extreme detail. 

"This way out!" 

"This way in!" 

"For the wounded." 

They were all over the place, but no attention 
is being paid to them now. Every traverse is 
packed tight with the proverbial closeness of 
the sardine can. God! how the casualties are 
pouring in, in tens, twenties, fifties, hundreds. 
They lie on the ground; they line the walls. 
Sometimes so great is the congestion that new 
batches have to be borne out in the open, where 
an enemy shell occasionally mercifully puts 
them past their pain, or adds to it, as the case 
may be. And then the new men, the reinforce- 
ments on whom our hope depends to consoli- 



TELEPHONE PROVES ITS UTILITY 113 

date positions already won. They must be let 
through at all costs, and with the least possible 
exposure to danger. 

Meantime in these very trenches our wires 
are being cut. How to get at them, and do the 
necessary repairing? Here and there a man 
manages to crawl through, but it takes so long, 
and we are already so handicapped! Out of 
twenty-six workers I have four left now. Re- 
quest after request goes back for reinforce- 
ments. Finally they send me out twelve ! But 
already complaints are coming in. 

"See here, Mr. Signaller," one Colonel says 
to me, "what the hell is the matter with our 
line? We can't distinguish a word that's being 
said. Better see to it. The telephone has gone 
groggy." 

I look over it — D 3. It seems O.K. to me, but 
probably the line has been earthed somewhere. 
I send a lineman out to look for the cause of the 
trouble, and this is what he finds. I give the 
story, as he gave it to me. 

"Well, Sir, I goes along the line and testin* 
every two 'undred yards, an' all of a suddint like 
I see a sight that makes me sick in my insides. 



114 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

Right there in front of me is sure enough 'Arry. 
Clearly, leastways, Sir, all that was left of 'im. 
'E 'ad 'is left leg blown clean orf, Sir, and arf 
the other, and one bloomin' 'and orf, and gol- 
blimey, Sir, if 'e didn't 'ave the broken ends of 
the cable 'eld fast in 'is other 'and, and 'e stone 
dead, Sir. 

1 'Well, Sir, I mends the cable and then looks 
abaht me, and I sees a long trail of blood abaht 
twenty yards. Poor 'Arry, Sir, 'e must 'ave 
been busted by a shell and then 'e crawled back, 
I suppose, Sir, with his arf a leg and arf an 
arm, and gripped the wire, Sir, and died." 

There seems to be tears in Hawkins' voice as 
he tells the story. For a few moments he stops, 
looking at me indecisively, as if debating 
whether he shall proceed. Then he lowers his 
tone to a confidential pitch, as he goes on. 

"You see, Sir, me and 'Arry was the best of 
pals. Sort of engaged to 'is sister, Lucy, I was, 
Sir. God Awmighty!" Of a sudden his pity 
gives way to fury, and a string of oaths and 
curses rain from his mouth. "I'll make those 
bleedin' swine pay for this, I will. You see if 
I don't." He has almost forgotten my pres- 



TELEPHONE PROVES ITS UTILITY 115 

ence. Then the rage subsides, and he sidles off, 
as if half ashamed. Poor fellow ! he gets small 
chance to wreak the revenge he threatened. A 
piece of H.E. gets him a few hours later, and 
so I lose two of my most valuable men. 

6 

At last we have reached the quarries that lie 
between Hulluch and the Hohenzollern Redoubt. 
But it is a thin, tired line that now advances 
bravely on these formidable enemy defences, 
and yet a line on which our whole success de- 
pends. In the comparative security of the hol- 
low behind these clay hills, the Boche has had 
time to steady himself. Now heavily reenf orced, 
he has rallied and is ready for the little troop 
that is so doggedly pressing on. 

But why is the troop so little? What has 
become of the reserves that had been promised 
earlier from the 21st and 24th Divisions? 
Surely to heaven they won't fail us at a crisis 
like this when we had trusted to them for new 
strength in the terrible struggle? 

On moves the line, and is met by the machine 
guns. It sways, steadies itself, sways again, 



116 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

falls back. Thicker and thicker comes the rain 
of bullets, pressing the advantage for the Boche. 
Again the line gives way — it is no more than 
a mere trickle now. Great God ! won't those re- 
serves ever come up? 

Then a horrible thing happens to that tiny 
troop. It finds itself blocked from the rear. 
Barbed-wire, their own barbed-wire which the 
Engineers, sure of success, had moved too far 
up behind them ! They attack it, try to tear it 
down, get entangled in their own efforts, a fine 
target for those terrible guns. 

And still no sign of the reserves coming to 
the rescue! 

What has happened? Who has blundered? 
Some one hints that the fault lies in the weak- 
ness of the cable communications. The hurried 
calls, they say, were delayed. The messages 
hadn 't got through properly. I go hot and cold 
all over, as I listen. Surely to God they are tell- 
ing lies. We couldn't have failed in spite of our 
efforts. They were desperate enough in all 
truth, and made against terrible odds. Well, if 
it is our fault, there is no use grumbling now. 



THE DAEEDEVIL OF THE ARMY 117 

We can only stick to our posts and put our 
trust in the Scotchmen. 

There they are out in front, putting up a des- 
perate resistance — the London Scottish, first 
territorial regiment in the British Army to make 
a charge. No one will dare to laugh at the 
" Terriers" after this. Time after time they 
rush at the oncoming Germans. 

"Ladies from hell" is the pretty compliment 
they earn from their enemy, in whose souls they 
are inspiring real terror. 

Here is evidence of it close at hand — four 
hundred Boche prisoners sent to the rear after 
surrendering to one kiltie and three Royal Army 
Medical Corps men. They are trembling, poor 
chaps, and their faces are yellow with lyddite. 

So it goes for days, attack and counter attack ; 
trenches won and lost, now through gas, now 
through liquid fire. The expected reserves come 
at last, but too late. We had lost our great ad- 
vantage. We had hampered the great advance. 
In one other part of the line an equal failure is 
reported, but it fails to afford us any consola- 
tion. 

Then on October 8th the terrible battle is over. 



118 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

Comparative quiet reigns along the line. We 
proceed to a counting of our casualties. Sixty 
thousand in two weeks. There was never a war 
like this war. But the Germans are even worse 
off than we. Eighty per cent., something over 
100,000 men ! Well, I can rival them in my small 
way. Out of a unit of fifty, I have lost forty 
men, and every one of them killed. 

Well, as I have said, we are now enjoying a 
comparative calm, and I am now on another 
part of the line. In the fighting to the South 
round Loos and facing Hill 70, we have lost a 
Brigade Signal Officer, and I am detailed to 
his post. I find the office in a disused house to 
the east of the village, about a mile and a half 
away from the famous hill. 

Again there is a deadlock along the front, and 
I proceed to get my section into working order. 
There is plenty to be done these days in the 
way of repairing. Occasionally Fritz disturbs 
us at the job. He sends over a shell by way of 
reminder that he is not yet hors de combat, and 
at times succeeds in putting us in that condition. 

About a week after I had taken on my new- 
job, I was sitting at my desk in the Signal Office, 



TELEPHONE PROVES ITS UTILITY 119 

a much more elaborate affair than the farm- 
house kitchen in which I found myself at the 
start. This is a large, long room. At one end 
and along one side is a bench to which telegraph 
and buzzer instruments are attached. At these 
sit the operators working. On the other side 
is a switchboard with its attendant. In the cen- 
tre at a desk — to be accurate, a large box — sits 
the sergeant, supervisor of the slaves. Behind 
him at another desk — an inferior box — are two 
corporals, one acting as despatch clerk, and the 
other as checking clerk, whose duty it is to keep 
tabs on all messages, whether incoming or out- 
going. 

Well, on the day when Fritz decided to get 
busy, we were all at our posts — more's the pity. 
For some time the artillery had been exchang- 
ing compliments, but to these we paid no atten- 
tion. It was a habit of theirs, and had never yet 
disturbed us. However, one never knows along 
the line. This time, it seems, our turn had come. 

Straight through the roof, with a horrible 
crash, tore a shell, splitting the house in half. 
For a moment the noise stunned me, and I was 
thrown out of my chair right on the top of the 



120 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

orderly who was sharing my corner. Then I 
stood up and looked round, to find myself al 
fresco. It was one of the strangest freak shots 
that I have ever seen. Gone were all the instru- 
ments with their operators. Gone, too ? were the 
sergeant and the two corporals. And here were 
the orderly and myself, standing safely in the 
shaky remnant of the room. These, I might add, 
are the little accidents that shake a man's 
nerve. At times, however, they serve to 
strengthen a man's belief in his luck, give him 
the impression that he is somehow immune. But 
let me tell you another story that came to my 
notice next day, and gave me pause in my re- 
joicing over my escape. 

There was a widow in the North of England 
who had five sons before the war. One was a 
regular soldier. He went to France in August, 
1914. His brothers, civilians before, now joined 
Kitchener's Army and went out with the first 
hundred thousand. 

Now Bill, as we call the regular — I've heard 
but forgotten his name — was in every scrap go- 
ing from the start. He fought at Mons, on the 
Marne, at the Aisne, Neuve Chapelle, and just 



TELEPHONE PROVES ITS UTILITY 121 

now lie had come safely through Loos. The 
other four had not lasted more than a few days 
on the line. They were killed, one after the 
other. 

Now the War Office, though a machine, be- 
trays human feeling at times. On this occasion 
it was moved by the tale of the five brothers 
and the mother they had left alone in the North 
of England. So the order, after much red tape, 
went forth to the front to release Bill and send 
him home to a profitable job at munition mak- 
ing, where he could help his country and his 
mother in comparative immunity from death. 

So Bill, who had just survived the slaughter 
at Loos, packed his kit without regrets, shook 
hands with his friends and mounted the motor 
lorry that was to take him to the station. You 
might think that the immortals had no use for 
Bill, having let him live so long in the midst of 
death. But Mars, it seems, must have his little 
joke. 

He was in sight of the station and of safety, 
one would say, when over came a shell, picked 
the motor lorry for a target, and up it went, 
carrying Bill to Kingdom Come. 



122 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

It was a sour-faced sergeant who told me the 
tale. It was most effective in shaking my belief 
in my own immunity. I presume that was his 
object in telling it. As your American cartoon- 
ist says, "Some one is always taking the joy out 
of life." 



Here we are again, going up in the world all 
the time. Now myself and my orderly, with 
our new instruments and our new operators are 
installed in no meaner quarters than a chateau ! 
They've given us the dining-room. I believe 
my maps are spread on the very table at which 
fair ladies of France once sat and sipped cham- 
pagne. Sic transit, says the poet. The glory 
of goblets is replaced by charts. Still they are 
helping to save the ladies' country. 

Nothing exciting so far, save Fritz's morning 
frolics. The blighter is always disturbing our 
best sleep. Never mind! We've upset one of 
his apple-carts to-day. He is not quite as effi- 
cient as he thinks he is, at least, when it comes 
to learning our language. Apt to be too ac- 
curate — which is a mistake. 



TELEPHONE PROVES ITS UTILITY 123 

Only to-day Sergeant-Major Bradley of our 
Signal Section was strolling through one of the 
village streets. As he passed, he noticed a man 
near the top of one of those odd-looking towers 
which in France take the place of the tele- 
phone poles used in this country. Now the Ser- 
geant-Ma j or happens to be in charge of our 
linemen. He knows every one of them not only 
by sight but by name ; moreover, he has an ac- 
curate memory for the duties he has told them 
to do. He failed to remember, however, that 
any man had been assigned to that tower. Then 
what the devil was he doing up there, testing 
the wires'? This, at a casual glance, seemed 
to be the gentleman's occupation. 

The Sergeant-Major who had passed decided 
to retrace his steps and investigate. With cer- 
tain omissions which you can supply for your- 
self, he shouted to the figure on high. 

"What are you doing there? Who 

are you, any way V y 

"I'm a Royal Engineer," came the answer. 

Now, as it happens, no seasoned member of 
our corps ever refers to himself by such a title. 
He might call himself an R.E., though that is 



124 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

unusual. He prefers either "sapper" or "line- 
man. ' ' 

"Oh, indeed!" said the Sergeant, becoming 
facetious. "Royal Engineer, are ye? Well, 
suppose you come down and let's have a look 
at ye." 

The man prepared to descend. There was 
nothing else to do, but as he complied with the 
request he slipped something in his pocket, 
which did not fail to catch the wary Sergeant's 
eye. 

"So you're a Royal Engineer," he reiterated, 
when the gentleman had reached the ground. 
"And what might this be?" 

Putting his hand in the man's pocket he drew 
out a neat leather case. It was a most compact 
instrument for tapping the wires. 

That man was in his grave before two hours, 
and the Sergeant is likely to wear a decoration. 



CHAPTER IV 

IN" WHICH THE WIEELESS COMES INTO ITS OWN ON 
THE BKITISH FRONT 

1 

It was during the battle of Loos that some 
gentleman entitled to think — only important 
people have that privilege in the army — decided 
it was high time that the British forces took ad- 
vantage of Mr. Marconi's invention. True, 
wireless had not been unknown in the world 
military. Indeed its introduction there prac- 
tically coincided with its debut in civil life. But 
so far the appointed controllers of the Signal 
Service destinies had looked on the interloper 
with disfavour. They preferred the time-hon- 
oured method of the regular telephone, which 
had weathered so many a test, but which, alas ! 
collapsed so often in a crisis. Our friend Fritz, 
on the contrary, had shown no such tender prej- 
udice. Always the leader in military fashions, 
he had been using the wireless telephone from 

125 



126 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

the very start in his communications, and al- 
ways presumably with excellent results. Where- 
fore it was decreed to offer him the delicate 
compliment — than which there is none more del- 
icate or sincere — of imitating him in this par- 
ticular line. 

So at Loos we started — also with excellent 
results. Whence hangs the rest of our tale. 
Justified by the experiment, the aforesaid gen- 
tleman or his friends decided to elaborate and 
extend the new system, thereby initiating a 
minor revolution in the methods of the Royal 
Engineer Signal Service. 

Immediately there went forth a call for quali- 
fied men for the work. Post offices, private 
wireless companies, telegraph offices were 
combed for operators already familiar with the 
intricacies of the Morse code or the rudiments 
of the more necessary radio work. The small 
schools which had formerly turned out the in- 
significant body of army operators were en- 
larged beyond all expectation. A new curricu- 
lum was chosen, and a new standard set, calling 
for very definite and very high qualifications on 
the part of the graduates. The new army oper- 



WIRELESS COMES INTO ITS OWN 127 

ator had to be able to send and receive the 
Morse code at the rate of twenty-five words a 
minute English or twenty words code and for- 
eign languages. As a matter of fact, fifteen was 
about as rapid as he could use, though he might 
need twenty in times of particular stress. No 
chances, however, were taken in the matter of 
speed. Then he had to be able to assemble and 
dismantle a standard Marconi set. He had to 
be able to hoist and strike steel aerial poles. 
He had to have a working knowledge of a trench 
set and a thorough knowledge of army pro- 
cedure. 

This course took him anywhere from two to 
three months to cover, according to his native 
ability and the extent of his previous knowl- 
edge. That knowledge, indeed, was usually 
small, for the average Englishman had seldom 
indulged in these semi-scientific studies. His 
American cousin, with his natural aptitude for 
these abstruse subjects, is far ahead of him 
here. Indeed, judging by a short but close con- 
nection with radio sections of the American 
Army which I have had since my advent in the 
JJnited States, I should be inclined to predict 



128 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

that in this branch of the service the American 
boy will beat all comers. 

Still, allowing for this general innate disin- 
clination — few Britishers would not prefer a 
bayonet to a wireless box — onr schools did rapid 
and efficient work. Soon qualified men were 
pouring over to France. Meantime behind the* 
firing line we were preparing officers to receive 
them. All Signal officers who could be spared 
from Brigade and Division Headquarters and 
who, of course, were already familiar with teleg- 
raphy and circuits, were sent behind the line for 
a three-weeks' course which would give them 
sufficient knowledge of the work to enable them 
to command a radio section, until regular radio 
officers were ready to take their places. And 
every officer on the line who showed any knowl- 
edge of wireless was brought back to act as 
instructor in the new schools. 

During my short stay at the Depot in Eng- 
land, I had confessed in an incautious moment 
to having done some wireless work in school. 
Now I was to reap the consequences of my in- 
discretion — in the army, as in the law courts, 
everything you say can be used against you. 



WIRELESS COMES INTO ITS OWN 129 

Besides, I was still a Cook's tourist, with no 
fixed abiding place, so presently I found myself 
departing from my small command with a ticket 
for General Headquarters way back beyond the 
line. St. Omer was the nearest station, but my 
billet was at Eoquetoire in a chateau which 
housed the school as well as the scholars. 

Here our work was conducted with that ap- 
parent absence of effort which seems to char- 
acterise all activities in the environment of the 
High Command. In the morning we went on ex- 
cursions, always carrying our little wireless sets 
with which we experimented in the pleasantest 
spots to be found in the surrounding country. 
Or we had rather informal discussions on ele- 
mentary electrical subjects which were never 
prolonged beyond three-thirty in the afternoon. 
After that hour our time was our own, to be 
disposed of according to our inclinations. Were 
it not for the omnipresence of certain red-tabbed 
gentlemen in whose presence discreet behaviour 
was advisable, this period might have marked a 
highwater mark in the way of amusements. St. 
Omer was a pleasant place, and quite close when 
one possessed a motor-cycle. But those red- 



130 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

tabbed gentlemen and the generals they sur- 
rounded were very numerous on its crooked old 
streets, too numerous from the point of view of 
a mere subaltern. Still one can't expect unal- 
loyed delights. At least the guns were far dis- 
tant. They no longer disturbed our sleep. And 
the beds boasted clean linen, and there was hot 
water for our baths. And we ate our meals off 
a dining table, and never extracted them from a 
can. Indeed, on the whole, we had reason to be 
grateful to the gentleman above mentioned who 
not only possessed but used his privilege of in- 
dividual thought. 

2 

It was not long before the wireless system, 
developing with that miraculous rapidity which 
characterises all developments in a modern 
fighting army, had established itself as an im- 
portant, not to say indispensable, part of every 
section of the British forces in France. In the 
trenches, with the guns, en the aeroplanes, at 
Headquarters — in short, everywhere, the radio 
had its definite place and different form accord- 
ing to the exigencies of the position assigned 
to it. 



WIRELESS COMES INTO ITS OWN 131 

During the great retreat its role with the in- 
fantry was practically monopolised by a few 
motor lorry sets which, though small, had played 
a significant part. To the casual observer these 
are no more than ordinary trucks, the bodies of 
which are limited by the small space of twelve 
feet by six. As a matter of fact, they are ex- 
traordinarily compact and ingenious contriv- 
ances, an entrance to which is effected from the 
rear. Looking in from here, one sees at the far 
end a bench about three feet high by four feet 
deep, above and below which are placed compli- 
cated instruments, recognisable only to the initi- 
ated. Along the sides of the truck run lockers 
about eighteen inches high by eighteen deep in 
which are neatly stowed various poles of various 
lengths to be taken out as occasion requires. 
Underneath the truck is stored another set of 
these poles, for this can be used either as a 
mobile or fixed station, and different require- 
ments demand different apparatus. 

One might imagine that all this paraphernalia 
would take up all the small available space. 
Not so, however. There were still two operators 
to fit in, one for receiving and transmitting the 



132 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

messages, the other for logging, filing and dis- 
tributing. This latter function was discharged 
usually by orderlies, four or five of whom as a 
rule followed outside on bicycles. Whenever a 
message had to be delivered to a commanding 
officer within the truck's sector, one of these 
men rode off with it — a very easy job compared 
with that of the men inside the truck. 

Quiet, you know, is considered essential for 
an operator's work as a rule, but quiet was the 
last thing these operators could hope to have. 
To being with, there was the incessant noise 
from the automobile engine ; then there was the 
continual bumping over the uneven French 
roads ; lastly, there was the roar of the guns in 
the distance, and not the dim distance, either, 
very often. 

There was an operator once whose truck was 
hit by a shell. A flying splinter from the wagon 
caught him in the foot, but he stuck to his job, 
though in terrible pain. How could he leave it, 
with no relief near by? I don't know how long 
it was before that relief finally came ; but there 
was another man whose relief failed him for 
some thirty-nine hours. From seven o'clock one 



WIRELESS COMES INTO ITS OWN 133 

morning until ten the next night he sat in his 
wagon, in his horribly cramped position, never 
taking the 'phones from his ears. A superman, 
if you will. There were many of them in those 
days, the early days, the dark days, when one 
man did the work of many, when we were fight- 
ing an army of fully-equipped millions with only 
thousands to hold them off — days that are gone, 
thank heaven, for good ! 

But to come back to our motor lorry wireless 
sets. With the finish of the moving fighting 
they went temporarily out of use. Trench wire- 
less apparatus became the great need now. The 
old telephone was good, but so long as communi- 
cations depended on cable that a chance shell 
might at any moment cut, so long were the com- 
munications undependable and therefore dan- 
gerous. 

A portable wireless for front line use that a 
single man could carry, that would not be a 
tempting target for machine gun fire, that would 
be not easily disabled even by the bursting of a 
shell — that was the instrument which the ex- 
perimenters aimed at. And it was evolved by 
slow degrees. In its final form — which it did 



134 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

not assume till some months later — it consisted 
of a box eighteen inches by nine, weighing just 
fifteen pounds and having a range easily of five 
miles. 

I remember when the first experiments were 
made with this set, some distance back of the 
line. They took the form of contests between 
the wireless and the old telephone. A detach- 
ment of each would start off from a trench, as 
if during an actual engagement, to a position 
some five hundred yards off. Then each would 
do his utmost to establish communications in 
the shortest possible time. The men, being on 
their mettle, did their best. But from the first 
the wireless man won, usually by an average of 
some thirty seconds — no small consideration in 
actual warfare, when perhaps it is a question of 
holding conquered ground against strong re- 
sistance. 

The instrument being thus perfected and the 
operators trained, the wireless telephone took 
its place on the line. Now when the Tommy 
advances to an attack, there is always a radio 
man somewhere in the rear. Where formerly a 
detachment had to reel out hundreds and hun- 



WIRELESS COMES INTO ITS OWN 135 

dreds of yards of cable to establish telephonic 
communication between the new positions and 
the old, now an operator picks up his box and 
his aerial, and advances simultaneously with 
the attackers. Arrived he crouches in a nearby 
crater, throws out his aerials along the ground, 
and establishes communications forthwith. The 
infantry is gaining. He follows right along. 
The infantry is retreating. He beats it back be- 
hind them. So has the wireless simplified mat- 
ters along the line. 

With the air service it is, naturally, of in- 
finitely more importance. Here, however, it was 
always in use, being essential to the success of 
the work. The aviator has been called the ' ' eyes 
of the army, ' ' but if those eyes lacked a mouth 
through which to tell what they have seen, they 
would often be just as useful if blindfold. 

Suppose a "spotter" has gone up to locate an 
enemy battery that has been creating havoc 
along our line. Suppose he locates it — a diffi- 
cult business in these days of effective camou- 
flage. Naturally it is out of sight both for our 
guns and their Forward Observation Officers. 
It is the " spotter's" business then to give our 



136 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

artillery the range and direct their fire. This 
he does by means of his wireless apparatus. 
Having given them the approximate distance, 
he signals down: 

"Go." 

They fire. It is a cloudy day, and they use 
high explosive which, giving out a yellowish 
puff, is undistinguishable to an airman's eye. 
Back he signals : 

' ' Shrapnel. ' ' 

This gives out a white cloud of smoke. They 
fire again. He sees it, but the shot goes over 
the target and a couple of hundred yards to 
the right. By means of a code he tells them 
the approximate distance by which they have 
missed. They fire again. Somewhat nearer, 
but not yet right. He signals again. They 
shift their range according to his instructions. 
So it continues until, finally, he flashes the let- 
ter: 

"Z." 

In artillery parlance, they have "hit." 

And this is only one detail of the work the 
air wireless does. It is invaluable for the avia- 



WIRELESS COMES INTO ITS OWN 137 

tor's operations. But we have not yet reached 
the end of the radio 's activities. 

Back at Army Headquarters, where enemy 
shells do not often fall, the aerial raises a high 
and honoured head. Here is situated a large 
Marconi station, the chief duties of which are 
the intercepting of enemy communications and 
the taking of aircraft reports. With this, too, 
are connected smaller sets at Brigade, and so 
on up to the trenches, where they ultimately get 
in touch with our tiny portable boxes. Thus 
does wireless as well as cable telephone link up 
the whole line. 

There was a captious gentleman once who 
complained that much activity was wasted by 
this chain of ever greater sets of wireless ap- 
paratus. Why not, he asked, replace them all 
by one large set close to the line which could link 
them all up at once with general Headquarters 
in the rear? Much time, he argued, could thus 
be saved. 

His suggestion was adopted. I remember the 
occasion quite distinctly. The station was 
erected. It consisted of a motor lorry set, l 1 /^ 
K.W., a 120-foot steel mast, an umbrella aerial, 



138 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

with a complement of three operators. For two 
hours it reared its undiminished head. Then 
over came one of those unsanctified 5.9 shells, 
and presently we were witnessing the ungodly 
sight of the lorry set, the steel mast, the um- 
brella aerial and the three operators being shot 
skyward to various points of the compass. Pre- 
sumably they have descended since, but I saw no 
evidences of their fall. They were scattered too 
far and wide to leave any traces. 

Thus was the captious gentleman answered 
out of the mouth of the enemy guns. So we 
resumed our tiresome chain of ever larger wire- 
less sets, and saved ourselves much expense and 
many lives. 

3 

The fickle masters of my destiny suddenly 
deciding that I had rested sufficiently long 
at Roquetoire, I was soon taking a hasty 
and none too reluctant farewell of that vil- 
lage and its many red-tabbed visitors. My 
orders were to proceed south to a Brigade sit- 
uated somewhere near Albert. I set out under 
a glorious sky on a very good road, and my in- 
structions allowing some elasticity of interpre- 



WIRELESS COMES INTO ITS OWN 139 

tation in the matter of time, I made no haste to 
reach the scene of unpleasant action. The the- 
atre of war had no attractions for me now. The 
set pieces had gone stale, and such surprises 
as it staged at times were not of a nature cal- 
culated to allure. At St. Pol, an old stamping 
ground, I delayed till the last minute. But soon 
the seventy-odd miles that separated me from 
my station had sped by under the smooth wheels 
of my all-too-swift car. 

So here I am again, Supernumerary Signal 
Officer still attached to a unit that I may not 
claim as my own. Oh, the joys of the tourist a 
la Cook! I am to assist the Brigade Signal Offi- 
cer with the telephonic communications. But as 
these consist mainly in superintending the wir- 
ing of places that are very seldom shelled and 
more seldom hit, or the receiving of messages 
concerning the company's foot- and underwear, 
I am liable to have much leisure on my hands. 
My masters, however, have foreseen such a con- 
tingency and duly forestalled any designs that 
his Satanic majesty might have had on my idle 
hands. Our radio system being still far from 
perfect, I am to devote my odd moments to ex- 



140 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

perimentation with the same. Those odd mo- 
ments are more easily counted as hours. The 
Boche is behaving with extraordinary restraint, 
and we are most carefully doing nothing to pro- 
voke his sleeping wrath. 

To one accustomed to a war atmosphere blue 
with smoke and shrill with screams, there is 
something uncanny in the calm monotony that 
characterises activities down here. There is the 
same routine in the trenches so far as the Tom- 
mies are concerned. Four days in billets, four 
along the line, rising at ' ' Stand-to ' ' in the dim, 
grey dawn, filling sandbags, cleaning rifles, tak- 
ing a turn at listening post. An occasional ex- 
cursion across No Man's Land when the night 
is dark and the enemy quietly at rest stirs the 
blood and makes a break in the monotony, but 
even these sallies rarely result in a real scrap. 
The object is rather to avoid such a clash, and 
the hope merely to take some unwary prisoner 
from whom we may elicit information regard- 
ing his superior's plans. For the rest, there is 
the waiting, endless, hopeless. For what? 
Heaven only knows. 

Poker proves a preventive for many a fit of 



WIRELESS COMES INTO ITS OWN 141 

the blues. Cursing is the safety-valve, if the fit 
gets fastened on one. There is some desultory 
betting on the direction of the shells between 
gamblers whom the chance of being hit does not 
even excite. 

"Bet you the next one gets that ole stump,' ' 
challenges Jones. 

His chum, as a kindness, takes him on. 

"Bet you it 'its the 'eap of stones." 

But so long has one to wait for it to hit any- 
where that the bet is all but forgotten when it 
falls. 

Some men of more domestic — or more greedy 
— natures, turn their attention to the inner man. 
In my strolls through the trenches I come on 
some of these venturesome people trying to vary 
the monotony of bully beef by devices learned, 
presumably, from nature herself. A little strat- 
egy and foresight exerted when in billets pro- 
vides the wherewithal for the experiments. 

When one knows how to handle Madame, the 
redoubtable, the parsimonious, one may gather 
such luxuries as potatoes or eggs with which to 
swell the regular larder. For instance, a sack 
of the former may be extracted as the price for 



142 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

cutting up her stock of precious wood, or mend- 
ing her windows removed suddenly by a shell, 
or finding tarpaulin to cover the airholes in her 
roof. And with potatoes one may concoct that 
delectable dish known on the line as "cottage 
pie." 

A layer of bully chopped fine, overlaid by a 
layer of potatoes mashed to a pulp, the whole 
baked in a mess tin over a fire-bucket — that is 
a recipe to be relished by any "regular." It 
was the smell of it that lured an unlucky private 
one day from his traverse into a neighbouring 
one where it was cooking. It was dinner hour 
— 12 a.m. — in the trenches. His meal was the 
bully and biscuits cold, so he decided, evidently, 
to ' ' cadge, " if he could. 

"Cottage pie, 'ave ye?" he said, casually 
strolling up to the six fortunate Tommies who 
were sitting round their fire-bucket, devouring 
it. "My eye, but some blokes is lucky. "Where 
did ye get the spuds'?" 

"Back in billets, ole dear." A long pause 
through which the visitor waited patiently. 
" 'Ave a bit." It came at last, with reluctance. 
People should provide their own luxuries or do 



WIRELESS COMES INTO ITS OWN 143 

without. The tardiness of the invitation, how- 
ever, in no wise discouraged the intruder. 

"Ah don't mind if ah do," he decided, sitting 
down. 

A long silence, broken only by such sounds as 
are not prescribed in the books of etiquette to 
accompany a man's meals. Then suddenly the 
silences were broken — the Boche chooses unfor- 
tunate times to get busy. There was a pro- 
longed hiss quite close to the ear, a bang, fol- 
lowed by a cloud of smoke, and up spattered 
the earth over our seven silent friends, covering 
them with stray bits of mud. A "pip-squeak" 
had hit the trench. 

In a second it was all over. Recovering, they 
looked round. And at the end of the traverse 
they saw the visitor lying sidewise, a mess tin 
still clutched in his hands. 

"Got 'is," commented one man, who had 
gone to turn him over. 

"Why the 'ell didn't 'e stay where he be- 
longed?" 

Even with a surplus on our hands, we waste 
no time on sentimentality. Callousness does 
not necessarily decrease with the size of the cas- 



144 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

ualty list. Ours is a very small one indeed. For 
days not a single case will come into the cas- 
ualty clearing station, a happy change from 
those times when we had sixty thousand in less 
than a week. Sometimes it is the Boehe laxity 
and sometimes a lucky chance that saves the 
life on our side. One day, suffering, I suppose, 
from a sudden attack of the old hate, the gen- 
tleman sent two hundred and eighty shells fly- 
ing into the little village of Bienvillers, which 
is a few kilos away from our quarters. And not 
a single soul did he send to heaven. But an- 
other evening he hurled a "big Bertha," just 
one solitary piece of explosive, right into the 
middle of the square. He timed it and aimed it 
well, for we were holding a band concert at the 
moment, and all the happy, harmless villagers 
were disporting themselves in the open. Thirty 
dead and more wounded was the toll that shell 
took ! Such are the unpleasant surprises on the 
line. 

But on the whole we have no reason to com- 
plain, for which we have to thank our friends, 
the Saxons. They, we are assured on good au- 
thority, are our opponents on this particular 



WIRELESS COMES INTO ITS OWN 145 

part of the line, an amiable race, judging from 
their attitude towards us. We ascribe those 
sudden fits of temper to the arrival of visiting 
Prussian officers, grim gentlemen with a fond- 
ness for fireworks. 

4 
Meantime we are discovering the virtues and 
vices of our new radio system of communica- 
tions. We had begun by using a perpendicular 
aerial which stuck its head rather too promi- 
nently over the parapet, thereby incurring all 
the hardships and hazards that had made life 
insecure for our old cable. Occasionally it stood 
for days, but this was due to the Boche indif- 
ference. When they woke up, its short span 
was measured in minutes. A most undepend- 
able contrivance, but we had taken no risks with 
it as yet, and we had leisure to look for a sub- 
stitute. This was presently evolved in the form 
of ground aerials that, lying along the earth, 
were practically indistinguishable and therefore 
as safe a system as could be found. A very ex- 
cellent thing, indeed, we found Mr. Marconi's 
invention, when adapted to our peculiar require- 
ments. Its chief charm, of course, lay in its ex- 



146 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

treme simplicity, a quality which, unfortunately, 
acted as a boomerang at times. Put it in the 
hands of an experienced gentleman operating 
behind our lines, with the object not of helping 
but of hindering us, and its charm took on a 
different aspect. There were many of these gen- 
tlemen in the old days in France. Most ingen- 
ious and elusive people they proved to be. Dis- 
turbing stories of their versatility used to float 
towards us at times, borne on those strange 
news currents that spring up along the line. 
Positive genius characterises some of their ac- 
tivities. The palm in this particular goes, I 
think, to the individual whose tale I am now 
going to tell. 

There was a Subaltern on our side, a young- 
ster just "out," who was suffering from a bad 
attack of souvenir mania. The malady being 
rather general, he was for ever in danger of 
having a curio pinched from his collection. Con- 
sequently, when he became possessed of a Boche 
rifle and bayonet, he made haste to put it in 
safe hiding. For this purpose he chose the 
chimney of his billet bedroom. Whence hangs 
the thread of this tale. 



WIRELESS COMES INTO ITS OWN 147 

Putting his hand up the chimney to find a 
resting place for the butt of his rifle, he was 
surprised to find it touching a pole of bamboo. 
He pulled; the pole came; then stuck, and no. 
pulling could bring it any farther. Being curi- 
ous by nature as well as by training, he deter- 
mined to investigate — which led him to the roof. 

It was a typical roof of a French provincial 
house, flat, with a chimney protruding at each 
end and a slight elevation of the wall above the 
gutter. The first thing to catch his eye when 
he reached it was a set of wires lying close to 
the surface. One ran from chimney to chimney. 
It was an open wire. The other which was in- 
sulated, adjoined this at right angles at the cen- 
tre and ran toward the side of the house. The 
first wire, he found on closer inspection, 
stretched not only up to but into the chimney, 
running up its side in a neatly made groove. 
He gave it a tug, and up came a bamboo pole. 

It took very few seconds for him to reach the 
street. He was young and extremely excited. 
He was in a hurry to find somebody in author- 
ity to whom he might report, and by good luck 
came on a staff officer walking through the town. 



148 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

"I wonder if you could give me a moment, 
Sir," he began breathlessly saluting, "to come 
up to my roof. There's dirty work, I think, 
Sir, being done there." 

"Oh!" said the red-tabbed one, not partic- 
ularly excited. He had heard such breathless 
tales before. "And what might it be? " 

"An aerial, Sir, so far as I can judge." 

"Good lud ! Come along. Let 's have a look. ' ' 

They went off together, and were presently on 
the roof. 

"You're right, sonny," said the officer after 
a few seconds' inspection. "That's what it is. 
I wonder where 's the rest ? Now you follow that 
wire," he pointed to the one that was insulated. 
"That's the feeding wire for this aerial, I 
should say." 

The boy set to work. He found that the wire 
entered a drain at the back of the house, re- 
appeared at the bottom, then vanished through 
the wall. So far it was easy, but no rummaging 
seemed to unearth the rest. Where the dickens 
was the instrument! Finally he decided that 
there was nothing for it but to dig through. 
This process performed, he found himself in a 



WIRELESS COMES INTO ITS OWN 149 

cellar and also at the end of his search. For 
here, buried deep under a pile of dirt and straw, 
was a very neat, very complete German wireless 
apparatus. It was even equipped with a zinc 
box round the spark gap to prevent any crack- 
ling of the transmissions being heard. 

"Hm-m-m," said the staff officer, "and who 
the devil works this? Run and fetch me Mon- 
sieur — Whatdyecallem the owner of your 

billet, my boy." 

After twenty minutes' search the boy re- 
turned. 

"Can't find him, Sir, and no one seems to 
know where he has gone. They're so stupid. 
Don't seem to understand me." 

So far as I know, no one has found him since. 
He was a short, stocky gentleman with a bullet 
head and shrewd eyes. Contrary to all custom, 
it was now remembered he had offered no ob- 
jections to excuses when they requisitioned his 
house — the best in the town and therefore the 
obvious billet for the officers. On the contrary, 
he had always exerted himself to make his 
guests cosy and comfortable. Though unob- 
strusive, he had been exceedingly attentive — » 



150 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

which, perhaps, ought to have aroused sus- 
picion. How he ever managed to hoist the aerial 
remains a mystery to this day. Probably he 
climbed out of his attic at dusk, when the offi- 
cers were at the mess, dining. But that is only 
guess-work. The rest is fact. 



And now we are nearing our second Christ- 
mas, a season that may be merry or very mis- 
erable. Holidays, bringing their reminder of 
a lapse in old associations, are apt to be de- 
pressing on the line. Last year we celebrated 
with a twenty-four hour truce. This year there 
is to be no such official recognition of the mean- 
ing of the great festival. Truces are inclined 
to be trying on the morale, particularly when 
accompanied by fraternisation between the op- 
posing forces. On the other hand, we must do 
something to mark the day, and the onus of the 
occasion lies, of course, on the officers. It has 
already become a custom for them to assume the 
duty of enlivening and otherwise cheering the 
men. Life here being in the raw, divested of 
all semblance of luxury, the efforts of the offi- 



WIRELESS COMES INTO ITS OWN 151 

cers are particularly directed to the procuring 
of creature comforts. 

For weeks before, the campaign is on. It 
takes the form of correspondence. Eelatives 
and friends once forgotten recur pleasantly to 
mind, particularly those possessed of generous 
souls. Casual little postscripts convey delicate 
little hints. Details are forwarded on request 
and after that — the deluge. Canned, tinned, 
bottled, boxed — all the forms and varieties of 
food and drink that can be safely entrusted to 
the sea, come pouring over to the Brigade. My 
billet is picked out as storehouse, for the simple 
reason that I live there by myself, and seem to 
have more room than the rest. I say "seem" 
advisedly. As a matter of fact, it is very small, 
and besides me and my batman, it houses the 
old owner and his wife. However, we are will- 
ing to bark our shins against the boxes and risk 
breaking our necks by tripping over hampers 
down the stairs. What's a leg more or less in 
such a cause! Fritz, however, is not disposed 
to be so friendly. Which leads me to perhaps 
the saddest of all the sad incidents I witnessed 
during my time at the front. 



152 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

The old couple with whom I lived — they were 
both over seventy — had already suffered more 
than their due share in the war. But with a 
persistence peculiar to the French peasant, they 
refused to move farther behind the line. They 
preferred to stay with their old home, damaged 
as it was, and their stock which had been re- 
duced to one cow and a pig. Before the out- 
break they had been happy, and looked forward 
to an old age, provided for by three sturdy sons. 
These had gone, and had died. But the old 
couple did not complain. They just looked 
stricken. They were sad, but very quiet, and 
they tended very faithfully to all my wants. 

One morning I went off to a neighbouring 
town, where I stayed until late afternoon. 
When I returned it was to find the old lady sit- 
ting in the ruins of her home, groaning and rock- 
ing herself to and fro. Some neighbours were 
with her, but she paid no attention to their sym- 
pathy. Seeing me, however, she sprang to her 
feet, and before I could stop her, she had thrown 
herself on the ground at my feet. 

''For God's sake go and kill them! Kill the 
cursed Bodies!" Her voice rose to a shrill 



WIRELESS COMES INTO ITS OWN 153 

scream, and she wound her arms around my an- 
kles. "Look at what they've done to me. Oh, 
won 't you go and kill them ! ' ' She was quite be- 
side herself with grief. 

We did our best to calm her, and by and by 
she quieted clown. Then she told me what had 
happened. She had gone out to do her market- 
ing, leaving the old man in charge. When she 
came back, it was to find him killed, her stock 
blown to atoms, and her house apparently split 
in two. A couple of shells had pitched close to 
it. So here she was at seventy, without kin, 
cattle or money. 

Her home, however, proved not to be abso- 
lutely beyond repair, judged by the standards 
that hold along the front. Tarpaulin and 
ground sheets manipulated by the Tommies 
made it weatherproof, and we continued to live 
in it. Our store of food, fortunately enough, 
was not much damaged. 

But this was not the only accident that threat- 
ened our Christmas preparations. Another, not 
quite so serious, eventuated a little later. Ac- 
cording to custom, also, the officers had raked 
together some few pounds to be spent on the 



154 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

spot. Our Brigade being averse to unnecessary 
labour, the disposing of the money was put in 
the hands of the sergeant, who in turn left the 
decision to the men. Their taste ran to pork, 
so a pig was procured, one of those long-legged, 
lean but sleek and satisfying animals that are 
so much favoured in France. For weeks before 
Christmas this precious brute came in for more 
attention than he had ever received in his life. 
It is surprising that he did not die of overfeed- 
ing. Probably his activity saved him, for he was 
extremely active, as we had reason to regret 
later. 

Then two days before the holiday rose the all- 
important question : Who was going to kill old 
Aristophe? You see, we had even christened 
him, so much did we care for him. As a rule 
there are few trades unrepresented in a platoon, 
but ours did not boast of a pig-sticker. It was 
a terrible moment, when the men made this dis- 
covery. Yet none seemed willing to undertake 
the necessary task. Killing Boches was one 
thing, but killing pigs was quite another. Every 
one seemed to shrink from the encounter. And 
then — heaven can be kind — some one suggested 



WIRELESS COMES INTO ITS OWN 155 

finding a friend, a Connaught man now con- 
nected with the Army Service Corps, who had 
once practised the unpleasant trade in the West 
of Ireland. 

But would he come? They put it up to him. 
He agreed on one condition — that he be allowed 
to share the excellent Christmas dinner. No one 
had thought of arranging festivities for the non- 
combatants of the A.S.C. Needless to say, the 
bargain was struck on the spot, and arrange- 
ments made for the ceremony of execution. 

Perhaps you have seen pigs killed and know 
all the terrible details. I hadn't, neither had the 
other officers. So we all gathered round, while 
the sturdy man from Mayo tied three of the ani- 
mal's legs, drew the rope through a ring, which, 
fixed in the wall close to the ground, was in- 
tended to keep him steady. Then, stretched on 
his back with the other leg kicking freely — this 
so that he might pump out his own precious life- 
blood — he was ready for the thrust of the knife. 
Perhaps our presence had made the hangman's 
hand unsteady, or perhaps he wasn't really a 
pig-sticker, and had only pretended to be one for 
the sake of the meal. Anyway, he had just in- 



156 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

serted the deadly weapon in the animal's throat, 
when up flew the three tied legs. Neatly, so 
neatly that even a boxer could not do it better, 
he sent a punch home on the executioner's jaw. 
Down went the Mayo man sprawling on the 
earth, and off ran the victim, his blood stream- 
ing behind him. 

Straight through the village street he sped, 
pursued by the whole Brigade, privates, non- 
coms., subalterns and colonels. And then — 
crowning coup on his part — he headed straight 
for the enemy's line. Were we to resign him 
to Fritz, or would we risk our heads for the sake 
of the dinner 1 Fortunately we were saved such 
an alternative. That indecisive knife-thrust was 
doing its deadly work — the track of red which 
we were following told that. Presently, after 
covering some eight or nine hundred yards, he 
fell, limp from loss of blood. And so the men 
had pork as the piece de resistance. But the 
Connaught man came in for some sarcasm all 
the same. 



WIRELESS COMES INTO ITS OWN 157 

6 

But though Christmas preparations might 
amuse us in our leisure, they were not allowed 
to divert us from our labour. Experiments 
were still going forward, but mine were now 
being conducted under the earth. To procure 
the necessary isolation and tranquillity, a sort 
of subterranean workshop had been dug. It 
consisted of a gallery ten feet long by six high, 
situated about eighteen feet beneath the surface. 
You entered this through a sap, that is a tunnel, 
four feet in diameter, through which you 
crawled on hands and knees. This sap ran at 
right angles to the bottom of a communication 
trench connecting two support trenches, prob- 
ably the loneliest position that could be pro- 
cured along the line. Even at the busiest times 
these communication trenches are quiet places, 
disturbed only by a passing foot. No place, 
however, could be too quiet for us. It was for 
this reason that I decided to work on Christmas 
Eve. Then every man not absolutely essential 
to the manning of the front line would be re- 
leased for the purpose of amusing himself. 



158 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

Then, too, the Boche, so surprisingly innocuous 
even in his most dangerous moments, might be 
counted on to devote himself to his carols. So I 
notified my assistants, a corporal named Black- 
more and a private named Weston, to meet me 
at midnight on December 24th at the mouth of 
our solitary sap. 

It was a damp, cold night, but nobody was 
minding the weather. By nine the festivities 
were in full swing. The mess-halls were merry 
with the clink of glasses. From the huts re- 
sounded the roar of lusty throats. I peeped in 
at one company concert, and found the stage 
occupied by perhaps the most disreputable fig- 
ure I have ever beheld at the front. His boots 
were muddy ; his puttees drooped disconsolately, 
and his tunic looked as if it had been dragged 
through a bramble bush. But the music that he 
wrung from the company piano would make 
even Kitchener himself overlook greater faults 
than these. Before I left, his place was taken 
by a perky little Cockney, who "rendered": 
"Just a little love, a little kiss," in a voice cal- 
culated to draw tears from a turnip. He had 
just prepared himself, as shown by the senti- 



WIRELESS COMES INTO ITS OWN 159 

mental break in his voice, to give adequate ex- 
pression to the words, "I love you," when from 
the back of the hall, sung to the air of the song, 
came a ribald roar : 

"Golblimey." 

I departed, followed by the shouts of laughter 
from which even the officers in attendance could 
not refrain. I never learned how the Cockney 
took the interruption. Then, having imbibed a 
tonic suitable to the state of the weather, I 
went off to join my men. 



It was exactly midnight as we bent to enter 
our sap. Blackmore and I went in first. 

"Not a soul in sight," he said, as we de- 
scended. "Thank God, there won't be any one 
to disturb us." And he was right. We were 
to recall his remark later. 

We two had just connected up our instru- 
ments, when Weston, coming in from the mouth 
of the tunnel, reported the Boches as becom- 
ing unusually busy. Barely were the words out 
of his mouth, when the ground quivered all 
round us. There came a shower of mud and dirt 



160 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

from the top of the gallery. We heard an ex- 
plosion, a loud rumble, followed immediately 
by a deep thud and a back draught of air that 
blew out our solitary candle. 

"What the devil V began Blackmore. 

We lit up again, went along the gallery into 
the sap to see what had happened, and found 
our passage blocked by a solid wall of earth. 
We looked at one another stupidly. There was 
dead silence for a few moments. It was Weston 
who finally spoke first. 

"Let's dig the stuff away," he said, "before 
we begin work. ' ' 

I noticed there was a quiver in his voice. 

Without comment, however, we all set to dig. 
I looked at my watch. The time was 12 :17. Our 
only tools were two jack-knives and my re- 
volver. Dig, dig, dig — we went at it nervously, 
earnestly, absolutely in silence. After a while I 
looked at my watch again, expecting to see that 
an hour had passed. It was exactly 12 :22. Half 
involuntarily I stop work, and the others fol- 
low my example. We all sit down on the earth. 
So far we have avoided even meeting each 
other's eyes. Now we look at one another cau- 



WIRELESS COMES INTO ITS OWN 161 

tiously, probingly, trying not to betray our own 
knowledge of the position we are placed in. 
Quite obviously there are thirty-five feet of 
solid earth to be shovelled away before we can 
get out into that support trench. Quite prob- 
ably that, too, is blocked by crumbled clay. The 
shell may have blown the parapets down on both 
sides. There is not the slightest chance that 
a man will pass anywhere near us to-night. 
Possibly none will pass even to-morrow. 

" Let's shout," says Weston. 

A perfectly futile suggestion, but we welcome 
it. It means something to do. Simultaneously 
and individually we scream at the tops of our 
voices, but all the answer we get is the echo. 
The louder our shouts, the greater the rever- 
beration in our ears. But we keep it up, until 
our throats are dry and hoarse. 

"I'll try my revolver," I say to break the 
silence. 

I fire one shot, and the sound reflected from 
the walls of the gallery almost splits the drums 
of our ears. But even that seems better than 
a flat acknowledgment of failure. One after an- 
other I shoot all six rounds. Our ears are ach- 



162 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

ing, and our heads buzzing from the noise. 
When I have finished, we sit a while in silence, 
as if expecting some answer. But none comes, 
of course. That was a foregone conclusion. 

"Well, there is nothing for it but to dig. Once 
again we go at it. Tiny handfuls of earth fall- 
ing at our feet reward our efforts — strenuous 
efforts that cause the perspiration to pour from 
our faces. So concentrated is my attention of 
the particular task in hand that I lose conscious- 
ness entirely of my comrades, until suddenly 
my attention is attracted by a strange noise 
from behind. I turn. There is Weston squat- 
ting on the ground, singing in a silly, soft voice 
to himself. 

"What the devil is he up to?" I asked Black- 
more, testily. 

"Loony," comes the brief reply. 

"Loony?" I repeat the word stupidly after 
him. 

"Yes, potty, you know — gone off his nut." 
He makes the announcement calmly, to be taken 
as a matter of course. 

Lord! what a pretty pickle we're in! Sup- 
pose I should come to that? It makes me shiver. 



WIRELESS COMES INTO ITS OWN 163 

I look at Blackmore, white-faced, steady-eyed, 
silent. He meets my eye, smiles, shrugs his 
shoulders. I smile back. Fine chap ! It would 
take a lot to drive him insane. Once again we 
set about our work. 

Dig, dig, dig — what a rotten job it is! The 
bending makes my back ache and all the blood 
rush to my head. Perhaps — it occurs to me 
later — this is accountable for the new noise that 
I seem to hear suddenly all round me. I could 
swear some one is tapping close by. I tell my- 
self it is quite impossible that the Boches could 
be mining here — we are too far behind our front 
line. But still my ears keep echoing to that in- 
cessant, insistent thud of a pick boring steadily 
through soft earth. I look around the tunnel. 
Could that possibly be the gleam of a Boche hel- 
met 'way back in the gallery? Automatically 
my hand reaches for the revolver on my hip. 
Empty ! What an ass I've been ! Also what an 
ass I'm being! If some one was mining near 
us, with intent to blow up our sap, surely Black- 
more could hear them as well as I. And there 
he is digging away for dear life. 

Dig, dig, dig, to the accompaniment of Wes- 



164 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

ton's singing. I wish his insanity would take 
another turn. That inane noise is beginning to 
get on my nerves. I open my mouth to shout 
at him, and become suddenly conscious that it 
is dry. And there is a queer, thick feeling in my 
tongue. Why, of course, it was to be expected. 
Our fresh air is giving out! However, there 
is no chance now to think of it, for Weston has 
decided to take all our attention. 

Whether my sudden movement toward him 
had attracted him I can 't say. Anyway, he rises 
to his feet, and, shouting wildly, begins heaving 
at us handfuls of the loose earth. 

" 'Ere, stow that," orders Blackmore. 

But the madman does not notice him. Pres- 
ently, however, he desists of his own accord, and 
begins instead a mad gallop up and down the 
gallery, all the time emitting wild whoops. He 
stops a moment to step deliberately on our deli- 
cate instruments which crumble with a soft 
crash beneath his heel. We watch him help- 
lessly for a while, and then I decide to use au- 
thority. 

"Stop that racket at once," I order, "and let 
us get on with our work." 



WIRELESS COMES INTO ITS OWN 165 

His answer is a rush at me. 

"Damn you," he screams. "It's all your 
bloody fault. You brought us here. You're 
burying us alive." 

Well, the murder is out at last. Buried 
alive! A pretty prospect! But there is no 
time to dwell on it now. With the violence 
of lunacy, he starts to attack me. We clinch 
for a second. Then there is nothing else for 
it. I hit him on the head with the butt of my 
revolver, and he drops unconscious to the 
ground. Barely has he fallen when the candle 
goes out, leaving Blackmore and me to our ef- 
forts in the dark. We stand there baffled and 
helpless wondering what on earth to do next. 

"For God's sake sing or say something," I 
tell him irritably. 

He begins to hum some old music-hall song 
every one knows, but he can't keep the quaver 
out of his voice. The result is a sort of comical 
cackle. 

"Lord! you're worse than the silence." 

He stops at once, nothing offended. I feel 
a fool; also ashamed. If I am to lose heart, 
at least I needn't take it out on him — the 



166 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

staunchest and sanest pal a man could find. 

We go at it again — dig, dig, dig. We keep 
it up for what seems hours, until my back seems 
broken and my brain on fire. Quite suddenly 
I grow sick of the whole proceeding. What's, 
the use of pretending any longer? We can't 
possibly get out by our own efforts; we can't 
hope to get out by any one else's. We might 
just as well give in first as last — save ourselves 
the aching tedium of this futile digging. 

"Let's ease off," I suggest to Blackmore, 
unwilling to confess that I'm giving in. 

"Righto," comes his cheery answer. Lord! 
how that man can show me up ! 

We sit down. It must have been six in the 
morning. We have been at it already six hours. 
Weston, who has recovered consciousness, is 
sobbing like an ill-used child. I sense rather 
than see that Blackmore 's head has gone down 
on his hands. I wonder vaguely whether he is 
really lost to hope, as I am, and is merely main- 
taining his blessed British reserve. At least 
thank heaven for his stoicism! It's infectious, 
an excellent antidote for Weston's hysteria. In 
silence save for the sobbing we sit there, mo- 



WIRELESS COMES INTO ITS OWN 167 

tionless, while my eyes peer painfully through 
the gloom of this grave. If we could only get 
some light — the tiniest gleam to relieve the 
blackness! I realise now why the preachers 
paint hell as exterior darkness. 

Slowly my gaze travels along the walls of 
the gallery. As it nears the mouth of the sap, 
I can scarcely repress my sudden start. For 
there I see a rift, tiny as the top of a tea-cup, 
dim and grey as the early streaks of a winter 
dawn. I look fixedly at it a moment. It doesn't 
move. It is really light! I turn my head. It 
is still there. I might have known — just a mi- 
rage, the trick of a tired imagination. I say 
nothing to Blackmore whose head is still bowed. 
Why worry him? He would just think that I 
was " seeing things." Still there it is, the size 
of a star. If it would only stay fixed, instead 
of travelling as my eye travels, round the gal- 
lery! It must be imagination. No light could 
pierce the walls. 

It must be fifteen minutes later that Black- 
more raising his head, gasps, grasps my arm, 
and shouts to me hoarsely : 

" Light! Look! Look!" 



168 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

"Where?" I ask sceptically. Let him fix its 
location. 

"For Christ's sake are you blind?" It is his 
first sign of strain. "There it is at the mouth 
of the sap." 

"Oh, yes," I answer stupidly. "Of course, 
so it is." Then at last the explanation dawns 
on me. 

My eye, accustomed to the gloom, had pre- 
served the image of this light on the retina. 
Everywhere I looked I saw the tiny star which 
was no more than a reflection still held by my 
optical nerve. So might your eye, reader, sud- 
denly struck by the glare of an electric arc, keep 
its dazzling brilliance even after you had de- 
flected your head. Only you, of course, would 
know what you were seeing. I was inclined to 
doubt the evidence of my own senses. 

Presently we rise and grope along the gal- 
lery to investigate this new gleam of hope. 
Evidently when the earth crumbled in under 
the impact of the shell, it had failed to fill the 
sap completely. Just a tiny crack remained 
open, made perceptible by the light of day. 



WIRELESS COMES INTO ITS OWN 169 

"Well, we won't choke to death anyway," 
says Blackmore very casually. 

"No." 

Only for this crack we might be already 
dead. 

Once again we set to work, but there is new 
energy in our efforts. We keep it up for hours, 
never tiring but ever turning to the little light 
on which we depend for our life. We try to 
explain to Weston, but he only whimpers like 
a whipped child. Poor chap! Why couldn't 
he have held out? 

I can see my watch again now. As it points 
to 10 a. m., the first shadow passes across the 
crack. 

I I They 've come, ' ' shouts Blackmore. 

We rush to the hole, and holler and holler. 
But evidently the damp earth retains the 
sound. Nothing answers us yet but the echo. 

More shadows! They pass and repass re- 
peatedly. We get impatient. How can any 
men be so blind 1 ? 

"Good God! can't they see we're buried?" 
31ackmore is irritable now. We shout again, 
but with no better results. Shout and dig, dig 



170 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

and shout — this is our regular routine. With 
every moment our nerves are getting rawer. 
And then — it is 11 — a sound reaches our ears. 
Some one digging! 

"Lord ! they've opened their eyes at last !" 

Our own work takes on now a furious quality 
of energy. We dig as we never dug before. 
Even Weston, sensing hope, has ceased to sob 
at last, and has crept cautiously closer to the 
sap. Conversation between us has stopped ab- 
solutely, lest by any chance we should miss a 
welcome sound. 

Twelve o'clock, and we're still here. Sup- 
pose we were mistaken after all? Suppose they 
are not digging toward us? Suppose they are 
merely clearing the trench, quite forgetting that 
our sap was somewhere near. 

"But they must miss us — they must." Black- 
more is nervous now. "I told the fellows I was 
coming here last night. ' ' 

We shout again. No answer but the echo. 
Well, they're still digging. We are at least 
sure of that. 

Twelve-thirty — we fancy we hear a voice 
close by. We stop to listen, but only the sound 



WIRELESS COMES INTO ITS OWN 171 

of the entrenching tool reaches us. Twelve- 
forty — it's coming closer. Yes, they're coming 
to us all right. That thud is too near for the 
trench. We tell Weston, but he only looks 
stupid and shakes his head. 

One o'clock — a shaft of light shoots into the 
gallery. A hand comes through, then a head, 
then a man's whole body. I see some one bear- 
ing a lantern. I hear a voice asking a question. 
I try to answer, but my tongue sticks to the roof 
of my mouth. I throw out an arm to catch 
something. It is taken. The next thing I know 
— I am lying in the Casualty Clearing Station, 
with a doctor bending over my head. 

"Better now?" 

"Yes, thanks." 

He tells me the story. 

No one had missed us all evening — I hadn't 
said I was going to work. No one had missed 
us in the morning, until the Chief Royal Engi- 
neer, coming to breakfast, noticed my vacant 
place. 

"Where is he?" he asks, being a friend of 
mine. 



172 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

1 'Working in his bally sap, I suppose," said 
some one. 

"I must drop round and tell him to hurry 
over before all the good things are gone. ,, It 
was a Christmas breakfast, an unusually good 
spread. 

It was about ten when, in pursuance of his 
thoughtful project, he dropped round to the 
trench and found his way blocked by a mound 
of earth. Quite obviously a Boche shell had 
pitched neatly. Immediately he set the men to 
work with a will. Were we alive? That was 
the burning question which added zest to their 
very earnest efforts. Yet even with their regu- 
lar entrenching tools, it took them over three 
hours to reach us. What a chance we had had 
with our jack-knives and revolver ! 

I inquire for Blackmore. Oh ! he 's all right. 
Not a nerve seemingly in the man's whole body! 
Weston? Well, it seems he had been buried 
once before. The doctor shakes his head over 
the probable effects of the second shock. No 
wonder he had gone "potty" right away! 

They send me back to my billet, where I am 
put to bed. Near-by is a brother officer shav- 



WIRELESS COMES INTO ITS OWN 173 

ing. I ask him for his mirror to gratify a sud- 
den whim. He gives it to me, and I can scarcely 
believe what I see. 

Can this man be I, this man with the hag- 
gard features and the hair turned so white on 
both sides of the head? Well, why not? Don't 
I feel sufficiently old and withered? I lie back, 
limp and lifeless, like an old man. 

For two days I stay there. Then my inertia 
leaves me. My brain begins to cry out for new 
food for thought. They send me back of the 
line to give me a chance to recuperate. But my 
nerves won't leave me alone. They wake me 
in the night in the grip of horrid nightmares. 
They shake me as if with ague at the sound of 
sudden noise. By a desperate effort I concen- 
trate on such work as I have to do. It relieves 
me somewhat, and I pluck up heart again. But 
nature has still a heavy toll to take for the vio- 
lence done her that Christmas night. 



CHAPTER V 

IN WHICH THE AUTHOR REPAIRS THE AIRLINE AND 
RETIRES FOR REPAIRS HIMSELF 



Dumar being chosen as the most suitable 
health-resort for the restoration of my shaken 
nervous system, I was despatched there pres- 
ently with a commission that called for the least 
possible effort on my part. Here, sixteen miles 
back of the line, I was out of range and out of 
hearing of the guns, and my billet, the cure's 
home, gave an added touch of peace to what 
was already a most peaceful setting. It was a 
poor home, for Catholic clergymen are not rich 
in French worldly goods, but the housekeeper, 
acting on instructions from her very hospitable 
master, did more than her best to make me 
happy. Incidentally she was Irish. How she 
got there I never learned, for I lacked the cour- 
age to inquire, though I confess to some curios- 
ity on the subject. But the tea and toast she 

174 



AUTHOR REPAIRS AIRLINE 175 

brought Lacey, my billet mate, and myself in 
the mornings had all the flavour of home. I 
never tasted the rest of her cooking, for, of 
course, we ate at the mess. 

Lacey, a Canadian Lieutenant in charge of 
the airline section, was my immediate superior 
for the time being. A very lenient superior he 
proved. My duties consisted in driving round 
each morning in a car placed entirely at my 
disposal, and seeing what the men were doing. 
In the afternoons I played football, and in the 
evening I prepared to sleep, the most difficult 
part of my work back here. I tried all the tricks 
enumerated by Mr. "Wordsworth in his famous 
sonnet on the subject of insomnia, but none of 
them worked for me any more than for him. 
So for hours I would lie awake, staring straight 
into the dark, trying to stave off a repetition 
of that terrible night. Try as I would, my 
brain refused to rest. With diabolical reality 
it reproduced one by one all the horrors I was 
trying to forget. Even, when, aided by an extra 
stiff glass of whiskey, I fell into fairly sound 
sleep, it was still busy, and presently it woke 
me. It woke me with the sound of Weston's 



176 THE DABEDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

singing ringing inanely in my ears, or the sight 
of Blackmore's eyes gazing despairingly into 
mine. At times I would find myself digging 
for dear life at some hard substance that re- 
fused to be moved away by my strenuous ef- 
forts. Or I would wake gasping for air and 
calling out that I was choking. And then real- 
ising that it was only my imagination at its old 
tricks, I would try to be still, while I quivered 
from head to foot in a perfect Turkish bath of 
perspiration. Imagination can be tragically 
active even in retrospect. It was a very limp 
assistant that confronted Lacey some morn- 
ings, but fresh air can be a wonderful 
panacea. By degrees I slept better. Then they 
changed us to Vignacourt, five miles away but 
still back of the line. Here in the wonderful 
forests that make the neighbourhood famous, I 
found some hunting that also helped to chase 
the shadows. But the work itself, small as it 
was, proved best of all. It was my first intro- 
duction to the mysteries of the airline. Let me 
introduce you in turn. 



AUTHOR REPAIRS AIRLINE 177 

2 

The airline or overhead wiring is used to con- 
nect up telephone and telegraph instruments in 
positions too protected from the advent of the 
Boches to require any sudden or swift changes. 
Like the cable section, the airline consists of 
two detachments, each of which consists in turn 
of one non-commissioned officer and ten other 
men, one man of the ten being always mounted, 
usually on a bicycle. Each detachment is sub- 
divided into two main parts. One, the front 
party, is responsible for the laying out of the 
line, the making of holes for the poles, the pre- 
paring of the poles and the fixing of the in- 
sulators. The other, the rear party, lays out 
the wire, strains and fixes it to the insulators, 
and erects the poles themselves. 

The officer in charge of the section is usually 
a Second Lieutenant. His duty officially is to 
map out the course to be taken, but as he nearly 
always has two detachments working in differ- 
ent directions at the same time, it is quite im- 
possible for him to act according to the letter 



178 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

of the law. Consequently this job often goes 
to the non-com. who is a sergeant. 

Suppose the line is to be rigged between two 
villages for a distance of approximately five 
miles. Then No. 1, the sergeant, rides on 
ahead, followed at some distance by the detach- 
ment. He picks out the most suitable course to 
take. When possible, he avoids the main road. 
Cutting across country, he marks the chosen 
path by a trail of red flags sticking at intervals 
out of the earth. This done for a space of a 
mile or two, he returns to superintend the work 
of the front party which has meantime begun, 
he being responsible not only for the designing 
but the carrying out of the line. He has to see, 
for example, that every pole is placed on the 
highest ground available; that it is not on the 
road, on a footpath or even opposite a gap in 
a hedge where passing traffic would be liable 
to knock it down. He has to see, in short, that 
the men don't follow the line of least resist- 
ance. 

Meantime, the front party, consisting of Nos. 
2, 3 and 4 have set out, accompanied by a mo- 
tor lorry or horse wagon, two of which go to 



AUTHOR REPAIRS AIRLINE 179 

each detachment. On this are piled the neces- 
sary stores for the building of the line. Poles 
for cross-country work are fourteen feet high 
and about two inches in diameter; poles for 
crossing roads are usually eighteen feet, so as 
to allow for the transit underneath of traffic. 

Nos. 2 and 3 of the front party carry each 
a sledge hammer weighing about fourteen 
pounds; also they have a "jumper" between 
them. With this they "jump" the holes for the 
poles at intervals of eighty yards. Should a 
convenient tree come in their path, they fix the 
insulators on that, so as to save as much of 
their stock as possible. No. 4, who stays with 
the wagon, fits the holes with insulators, and 
passes them to the party in the rear. No. 5, 
who is usually a corporal, superintends the 
working of this rear party. No. 6 pulls a bar- 
row on which is fitted a drum of wire, and is 
assisted in his task by No. 7. He, wearing a 
leather glove, lets the wire run off the drum 
through his hand, the object being to detect 
any possible flaws in the cable. These two, 
really, form an intermediary party by them- 



180 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

selves, coming in the rear of the front and still 
removed from the second. 

Nos. 8 and 9 wear belts to which are attached 
clips. Their duty consists in alternately "tak- 
ing the strain." They fix the clip to the wire. 
Then, facing towards the rear, they bear back 
until the wire is as taut as possible. No. 10 
comes next. He picks up the pole, fixes the 
wire which the straining of Nos. 8 and 9 has 
drawn tight, and slips it into the hold which 
has been jumped by Nos. 2 and 3. And so it 
goes at the rate of a mile and a half or perhaps 
two miles per hour, each man preparing the 
way for or supplementing the work of the other. 
As they approach the end of the red-flag trail, 
off starts the sergeant again on his pioneer 
work of picking up the course. Meantime, 
however, the men are not left alone. For there 
is still No. 11, he who boasts a bicycle, con- 
tinually riding up and down the whole line. 
His job is to keep the crew hard at their work 
and see that everything even to the smallest 
detail is properly done. Finally there is the 
officer, in this case occasionally myself, eter- 
nally turning up at the most unexpected mo- 



AUTHOR REPAIRS AIRLINE 181 

ments, flying from one section to another in his 
swift little car. No, there is no lack of super- 
intendents in this job, and no lack of economy 
in its conduct. No object lying in the cross- 
country course of the detachment that is high 
enough to replace a pole, is ever spared. 
Whether it be a permanent telegraph pole 
already erected in the country, or a tall tree or 
a house-top — one and all they come in handy. 
And woe betide the man who fails to press them 
into the service as supports for his precious 
wire! Oh, we are terribly economical on the 
battle fronts of France. This, you know, is a 
war of materials, and the only one we must 
waste is human life. 



My stay at Vignacourt did not last more than 
a month, so I was soon boosting back to my old 
place on the line. But it was a very stiff man 
who reported one evening at a Signal Office 
along the Somme. 

The chances being that my football games 
were over, I determined to indulge in a regu- 
lar orgy at the end. In the morning I played 



182 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

soccer with the men — a fine bunch of athletes 
they were. In the afternoon I took part in a 
game of rugger between signal and staff officers 
versus the rest. It was one of those rare spec- 
tacles well worth immortalising with a movie 
camera, though one shrinks from the possible 
effects it might produce on the mind of the 
British public. A civilian entering the ranks 
has forcibly impressed on him at various times 
the dignity of the High Command, the defer- 
ence due to exalted station, and the disastrous 
consequences that follow any familiarity with 
his superior officers. Consider then the feel- 
ings of the raw recruit confronted by the spec- 
tacle of a General arrayed in amputated 
pyjamas, ducking and diving, bucking and being 
bucked around a second-rate football field lined 
most liberally by cheering Tommies! "Togs," 
of course, are very scarce along the front, and 
uniforms neither comfortable nor convenient. 

So when Brigadier General T decided to 

join us in his night attire, no one expressed the 
least embarrassment or surprise. As he was 
twenty years the senior of the eldest of us, we 
thought, with the contempt of youth, that his 



AUTHOR REPAIRS AIRLINE 183 

presence would not add to our chances, but we 
were wrong. For neither his language nor his 
limbs had lost their vigour. 

There came a stage in the game when we, 
the Signal and Staff, were pressing on the 
"Rest's" line. The Brigadier was playing 
scrum half-back. The burly sixteen forwards 
were righting for supremacy in the scrum. The 
old man lobbed the ball in, but instead of wait- 
ing for his forwards to heel it out, he suddenly 
vanished in the mass of legs. Then as suddenly 
out he popped on the other side, and was over 
the line for a try! 

We were winning, with three minutes to go, 
and were beginning to feel ourselves safe, when 
a huge gunner got away down the wing. On 
he came like a steam engine shining with sweat, 
but fresh as a daisy drenched in dew. No one 
could stop him — we were all about in. Finally 
there was only me for him to pass — I was play- 
ing full back. 

I had about decided that, if I could manage 
to bring him down, I could at least drive him 
into touch, but he must have guessed my inten- 
tions from my face. With a sudden swerve he 



184 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

turned away from the touch line to the open 
field. It proved to be his undoing. There came 
a cheer from the side-lines and a wild shout. 

"Go it, pijos!" Oh! the demoralising effect 
of football. It was a private addressing a Brig- 
adier General! 

And there came our little dynamite half-back 
• — he was well under six feet — streaking up the 
field like a comet. Now he was on the big gun- 
ner who had lost ground in his attempt to 
swerve. Then with a yell worthy of an Indian 
and a string of parlour words that wouldn't 
have disgraced a longshoreman, he hurled him- 
self on his huge foe. There followed a couple of 
fine somersaults. Both bumped the earth. 
Then, as if made of rubber, up bounced our 
Brigadier and booted the ball down the field 
into touch for safety, while the gunner lay stiff 
and windless. 

There was once a famous Dublin sportwriter 
who declared that, to get an angle on a game, 
he always sat not in the press seat but on the 
steps of the " Mater" hospital, where he could 
count the casualties from both sides as they 
come in. His method might have been applied 



AUTHOR REPAIRS AIRLINE 185 

nicely to our game. Swollen lips, swelled fore- 
heads, bruised limbs, broken bones — we bad 
them all. I got only a bloody nose, which in- 
sisted, however, on repeating its afternoon per- 
formance at intervals as I drove back that even- 
ing to my old billet. 

Though a very tired man, I sat up long to 
hear the "latest." There were many gaps in 
the old ranks, some in hospital, some "gone 
West. ,, There were also some promotions and 
decorations. In connection with the latter I 
must tell a story over which I confess we 
laughed loud and long. Incidentally it may 
supply psychologists with a new definition of 
daring. I'm afraid they have never found one 
to cover this case. 

S was a friend of ours, solemn and state- 
ly, about as animated as a statue when not com- 
pelled to use his muscles. A very careful man, 
however, with a strict sense of his duties, but 
absolutely lacking in enthusiasm or inspiration. 

It happened that after a very uneventful 
term in France he was sent home on leave of 
absence. He was not gone two days, when 
Venus accomplished what her friend, Mars, had 



186 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

utterly failed to perform. S came to life 

with a sudden start, animated by a hopeless and 
helpless passion. She must have been a 
charmer to make this stone man melt. But 
alas! she was also a gay deceiver. Having 
raised him for a short period to the highest 
heavens of joy, she plunged him into the hell 
of despair. When he returned to the front after 
this disastrous encounter he had been trans- 
formed from a statue into an untamed tiger. 

Cold before, he was fiery now. Where he 
had once been careful, he became reckless. Was 
there a chance of getting shot? He rushed 
fearlessly in. He exposed himself in and out 
of season. Risks were the breath of his life, 
for all he courted was death. There could be 
no doubt of it. 

He wanted to get killed. 

But did he ? Not at all ! War never takes the 
willing. 

Instead, — so unheard of was the fortitude 
and enterprise he displayed — so it seemed to 
the uninitiated superiors — that his feats 
reached the ears of the general. Forthwith 
he was recommended for a D. S. 0. He got it. 



AUTHOR REPAIRS AIRLINE 187 

Strangely enough it restored his senses. Not 
that he became a regular statue again, hut he 
took the usual precautions for preserving his 
life. I would be willing to bet he has lost it 
since. 

The gaps I found in the regimental ranks 
were not the only ones awaiting me on the line. 
The village, too, was poorer by one inhabitant. 
A very harmless and helpful creature she had 
always seemed, ready at any time to take on a 
man's laundry and turn it out for him almost 
" while he waited." No one had ever thought 
of connecting her with the mysterious accidents 
that had sent ammunition dumps and camou- 
flaged batteries so often up in smoke. No one 
though of it, that is, until it was proved beyond 
dispute. 

Unusual aim on the part of the enemy guns 
always indicates more than average "intelli- 
gence." There are certain things, of course, 
which cannot be concealed from the eyes of the 
aviators, but dumps or dug-outs are not 
reckoned among the number. No man can see 
things under the earth. Consequently, when 
Fritz makes an amazingly accurate hit, every 



188 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

one is on the look-out for suspicious characters. 
But, though the town was very small, none was 
discovered, until an enterprising young airman 
got on the qui vive. 

Looking for trouble from aloft, he allowed 
his eye one day to rest on some bedsheets dis- 
played conspicuously on a lawn. "White shows 
up well against the dark background of the 
earth. That is why the landing stages are 
painted that color, and that is why every one 
laughed at this chap, who was not much more 
than a novice, when he came down with his 
story about the old lady's laundry. She was 
quite old, as such people often are. It is most 
convenient to be able to plead senile deafness or 
appear doddering, when one is asked either per- 
tinent or impertinent questions. But though 
his suspicions provoked sarcasm, he neverthe- 
less received instructions not to let the said 
laundry out of his eye. He didn't. And one 
day he reported those sheets to have assumed 
the shape of the letter V. The next day they 
resembled an R. Every day they were there, 
weather, of course, permitting. 

An investigation followed. And the boy was 



AUTHOR REPAIRS AIRLINE 189 

proved right. Those sheets were being used as 
semaphores to point out to enemy airmen posi- 
tions worthy the attention of their guns. That 
is why the old lady had yanished from view, 
and we all had to look elsewhere for a last-min- 
ute laundress. 



The Brigade Signal Officer, having obtained 
a long-deferred leave, I now found myself ap- 
pointed to fill his temporarily empty shoes. 
We spent the morning after my arrival going 
over the details of the job. I learned who could 
be trusted to do what; who showed up best in 
a crisis, and whose long suit was the tedium of 
routine. My assistants were to be sergeants, 
those omniscient but unobtrusive veterans who 
are the young subaltern's standby and best 
friends. When my predecessor departed for 
the joys of blighty that afternoon, I decided 
to take one of these invaluables on a tour of my 
sector that evening, and see for myself the lay 
of the land. We set out after dark, the safest 
time to visit the trenches. While engaged in 
an investigation of a certain signal dug-out, 



190 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

we became involuntary eavesdroppers on the 
following conversation. Though the Leicesters 
were manning the front line at the time, it was 
obvious that their ranks were not entirely com- 
posed of English blood. 

"Och, the poor angashore — shure 'tis starv- 
in' he is. Larry, give him some of your bully 
beef. When did they feed ye last, Jerry?" 

Even if the accent had not betrayed the 
speaker's origin, this last would have been suf- 
ficient in itself. An Irishman, be it known, dis- 
dains the conventional Fritz when referring col- 
loquially to his friends across No Man's Land. 
Unseen, I approached the opening of the dug- 
out, and found the particular "Jerry" in ques- 
tion to be no more than a boy who was exhibit- 
ing an advanced stage of starvation. 

"I had some black bread and three ounces of 
meat at twelve o'clock this morning," he an- 
nounced presently in perfect English between 
mouthfuls. 

It was now nearly twelve midnight. Evi- 
dently he had availed himself of the darkness 
to make his way across to our line. How he 
had contrived to elude the sentries Heaven 



AUTHOR REPAIRS AIRLINE 191 

knows, but here lie was safe and sound, a self- 
made and satisfied prisoner. The Irishman, 
however, was by no means through with his 
catechism. His is an enquiring and sometimes 
sceptical mind. 

"Tell me now," he began again, when his 
guest had finished eating, "how came ye to 
desert on yer friends? Wouldn't you be better 
off to stay where ye were?" 

"I would not," replied the German, promptly 
and decisively, "and if you fellows weren't so 
quick with your guns, there would be many 
glad to follow my example." 

At this juncture, I thought it might be profit- 
able to make my presence felt, so I stepped out 
of the surrounding shadows. Instantly the boy 
saw me, and stiffened to attention, after the 
rigid fashion of his kind. Whereupon the Irish- 
man, pointing a finger at him, observed 
jocosely: 

"More gun-meat we've got for you, Sir." 

As he spoke, such a look of terror came into 
the prisoner's eyes as it is not good to see in 
the face of any man. With the intention of 
reassuring him as much as anything else, I 



192 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

asked him what was the matter. No one could 
help seeing that he was in a panic of fear. 

"They told us," he said, "that if the British 
caught us alive, they'd shoot us, but I didn't 
believe it." 

He had obviously taken the Irishman's re- 
mark as proof that after all "they" had been 
right. 

"Well, why come over, if you thought there 
was a chance of being shot?" I asked him, 
after our evident amusement had allayed his 
fears. 

"I couldn't stand it any longer," he an- 
nounced. And then he told me his story 

He was a Saxon, as we suspected all our op- 
ponents of being down here, and, as is well 
known, neither he nor any of his countrymen 
had much heart in the fight they are forced to 
make. They have no great hatred of the Brit- 
ish, but they have much of their bosses. 

"And now," he explained, "they have given 
us Prussian and Bavarian officers and non- 
coms." 

And he went on to relate how one Prussian 
sergeant had so ill-treated his particular chum 



AUTHOR REPAIRS AIRLINE 193 

that the chap one day lost entire control of 
himself and beat out his superior's brains with 
the butt of a gun. Naturally, he paid the pen- 
alty with his life. Which did not make things 
more cheerful for our young prisoner. As 
to how he had got across — well, he had just 
watched his chance, crawled over the parapet 
to comparative safety and then ran for bare 
life. 

And the Saxons are not the only ones who 
show an unexpected affection for our side. 
Which leads one to wonder whether the hate 
fostered so sedulously by their superiors, has 
in reality spread very effectively through the 
German ranks. All along the line there have 
been pathetic efforts at intervals to bridge the 
terrible gulf that divides the fighters. On one 
occasion a German went so far as to stick his 
head over the parapet, while he shouted for 
such as were interested the following family 
information. 

"I've a wife and five children in Bolton." 
"Well, if ye don't put yer bloomin' 'ead 
down, she'll be a widdo," came the swift and 
uncompromising response. 



194 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

Such appeals have little effect on our men's 
hearts. They don't curry favour, but neither do 
they cherish hate. Either would be too much 
trouble for the unemotional, lazy Britisher. 
War's a rotten business, but it's got to be done. 
Meantime let's not pretend an interest in a peo- 
ple who are a nuisance. 



Next morning we woke to such a dim, dull 
day as might have provoked the illusion of 
being in London. Fog pressed on the window 
panes or streamed like smoke into the room at 
the slightest opening. So densely did it en- 
velop the landscape for miles around that one 
might have promenaded on No Man's Land, 
had one desired to, without risk of interrup- 
tion from the Boches. Nor was the midday sun 
powerful enough to dispel it. 

After breakfast I repaired to the Signal Of- 
fice with the general intention of remaining in- 
doors all day. But shortly after my arrival 
came report of a break in the cable communi- 
cating with Battalion Headquarters. As my 
tour of the sector had been cut short last night, 



AUTHOR REPAIRS AIRLINE 195 

I decided that here was a good opportunity to 
resume it with profit. So I told the lineman I 
would accompany him on his job. As I have 
intimated, dense weather is not an unmiti- 
gated disaster. Low visibility is quite desira- 
ble on the front line, allowing, as it does, a free- 
dom of movement that would mean death on a 
clearer, more cheerful day. Not to be back- 
ward in taking advantage of our opportunities, 
we determined to ride up to the trenches. 

We found the break easily enough, repaired 
it, tested communications and found them once 
more 0. K. Then, with the lineman as escort, 
I proceeded to an investigation of the rest of 
the cables round here. En route a pile of trench 
revettes crossed our path. We could have got 
by them easily enough, but somehow I didn't 
want to. Instead I dismounted, giving my horse 
to the care of the lineman. Then I wandered 
off alone, leaving him sitting peaceably on the 
wood pile, puffing at the inevitable cigarette. 
What prompted me to act thus, I can't say. I 
simply did it without reason. People have told 
me Providence was protecting me, but then He 
was neglecting my man — which seems unfair. 



196 THE DABEDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

Anyway about thirty feet farther on I found 
a line in bad condition, the insulation being 
eaten away. I ought to have called the lineman 
to mend it. Again I didn 't. I don't know why. 
Instead I bent myself, examined it, and was be- 
ginning to patch it up, when 

Bang ! Crash ! Stars ! 

The wire faded from my vision. I fell to the 
earth, and lay there — I don't know really how 
long. 

Perhaps it was an hour later, perhaps two 
hours, perhaps only ten minutes, when I woke 
to find myself still alone. I was lying on my 
back, with neither the force nor desire to move. 
All that concerned me was my head. It didn't 
hurt. But it felt odd, numb, heavy, as if re- 
moved from me. I put my hand up. It stuck 
in something prickly. That struck me as curi- 
ous, but it did not disturb me. I felt my face. 
It was bloody. So was my coat. And where in 
the world was my cap ? I tried to turn my head, 
as if to search for it. It stuck. Well, why 
bother? I didn't w T ant it. I didn't want any- 
thing, unless perhaps that it might be to be left 
alone. I had a sort of presentiment that mov- 



AUTHOR REPAIRS AIRLINE 197 

ing me would mean pain. At present I had no 
sensation whatsoever. I was neither comfort- 
able nor uncomfortable. It seemed almost as if 
I didn't exist. Here I lay, enveloped in fog, 
unable to see anything on any side of me. It 
struck me once that perhaps, if I knew it, I 
was dead. And then imperceptibly I slipped 
back into a state of coma. When I woke, I was 
in the Trench Dressing Station, with a band- 
age round my head, pressing, as it seemed to 
me, into my very brain. 

They gave me a drink — I suppose it was some 
kind of spirit. Certainly it stimulated me on 
the spot. Sensation returned to me. Oh! how 
I wished it wouldn't! My head caught fire, 
and a hundred red-hot needles seemed to be 
pricking into one horrible mass of pain. Then 
I was seized with a rampant headache, the kind 
that bursts through one's eye-balls and causes 
one's cheeks to blaze like a flame. The more 
conscious I became, the worse my suffering 
grew. I wished to heaven I had died in the 
coma. 

Still with consciousness came some interest 
in my earthly affairs. I inquired how the acci- 



198 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

dent had happened. They told me that a shell 
had come over, hit square in the midst of the 
woodpile on which my lineman was sitting so 
peaceably smoking his fag, had blown him and 
the two horses instantly to atoms, and scat- 
tered the fragments of them and the wood for 
yards around. Four or five of these flying pieces 
had evidently caught me amidships, as I bent 
over the piece of worn wire. Aided by the con- 
cussion, they had thrown me forward on my 
head. As I fell, my hair caught in some dis- 
used barbed wire. This penetrated the scalp on 
the crown of my head, tearing it forward to the 
forehead. I rather suspected I had assisted in 
the tearing myself. My body must have turned 
as I fell. Well, I had met Indians and savages 
of all sorts in my travels, but it remained for 
the Hun to turn the old trick. 

"So I've lost my scalp?" I inquired of the 
doctor. 

"Oh, no," he reassured me. "It is simply 
hanging loose." 

Somehow his answer gave me a sick sensa- 
tion in my stomach. I started. When had I 
had that feeling before! When I was buried! 



AUTHOR REPAIRS AIRLINE 199 

Here I was scalped! My whole body began to 
tremble, and sweat to ooze from every pore. A 
fine chance, surely, for the old enemy to at- 
tack me ! And I was right. There were many 
long nights ahead of me now when my head, 
red-hot with pain, I was to be tortured with 
the old torments, when imagination was to take 
advantage of outraged Mother Nature to con- 
jure up abominations unknown to me before. 
Many a night, oppressed by that powerlessness 
that paralyses us in sleep, I was to try to dig 
with arms that refused to move, or to shout 
with a throat that refused to open, or to attack 
an enemy with a gun that refused to shoot. In 
the dark, before the dawn, when the vitality is 
lowest, and resistance at the irreducible mini- 
mum, I was to lie awake quivering with pain, 
confronting strange shapes and nameless hor- 
rors that faded only with the breaking of clear 
day. 

And I am but one of many who have faced 
such misery. Ask any wounded soldier what 
is the worst part of war. He will not tell you 
that it is the mud or the monotony or the ter- 
rors of the hand-to-hand attack, but the night- 



200 THE DAEEDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

mare after he has been restored to the normal 
again in a hospital back of the line. Ask any 
nurse what she finds hardest to bear in her 
work in the wards. It is not the foul smell of 
blood nor the filth of trench clothes nor the 
mangled flesh of the operating table. It is the 
drawn faces of the men, the haunted, harrowed 
look that stares at her out of their sorrowful 
eyes; or it is the shrill, eerie cry that wakes 
the ward in the night, when the man's mind re- 
produces the old misery in a nightmare. It is 
in retrospect that some soldiers suffer most. 
That is why death is sometimes preferable to 
maimed life. 

6 
Back in the Casualty Clearing Station one 
first meets women again. When I woke at 
C. C. S. No. 1 that evening after my jaunt in 
the comfortable ambulance, however, it was an 
orderly I found bending over my head. How 
that man irritated me with his benevolent, offi- 
cious air! My only consolation la> in cursing 
him. His first duty was to shave my head. 
Poor chap! I suppose he went gently, but he 
might have been using hoop iron by the feel 



AUTHOR REPAIRS AIRLINE 201 

of it. I'd have given a good deal to use the 
razor on his throat. We wounded heroes give 
people a good deal to put up with. Gentle 
reader, if you are looking for a saint to canon- 
ise, search among the attendants in the Cas- 
ualty Clearing Stations behind the line. 

It was in the midst of his operation that a 
sister visited the ward. There were four of 
us in it, and, though she paid no attention to me, 
the very look of her was sufficient to soothe me. 
The rustle of her apron, the swish of her skirt, 
the sound of her voice admonishing a fellow- 
sufferer — they were the sweetest music I had 
heard in many months. And then the cool feel 
of her capable hand and the kind smile on her 
capable face! Such small things it is that re- 
store life to the normal and help to relax the 
tension of trench nerves. 

They kept me here a week. Then I was made 
ready for a move to the Base. We left early 
one morning on what I expected would be a 
short trip. The towns were not more than 
sixty miles apart. But hour after hour passed, 
and still no stretcher made its appearance to 
take me out of the trap they call a train. At 



202 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

last came evening. Lo and behold we had ar- 
rived! But where? After a twelve-hour trip 
here we were again at Casualty Clearing Sta- 
tion No. 1 ! 

"What the !" "Why the !" 

Our language was very strong, much stronger 
than was warranted by the strength of our 
bodies. 

"Did they call this a joke?" we asked one 
another. 

But no, there was a reason. Here it is. 
Trains are precious things, and can't be wasted 
on just a few. So this one had made a tour of 
all the C. C. S.'s in the district picking up a 
burden from each. They began at the begin- 
ning which was also the end. I can only pre- 
sume they thought we should like a journey. 
But the end was not yet. Though it was late in 
the evening, the train could not be halted on its 
trip. So off we set again, this time really for 
the Base which, as I remember, was General 
Hospital No. 3. 

Here I had hoped to make but a call en route 
for "Blighty" and home. But again I was 
fated to be disappointed. In all, my stay con- 



AUTHOR REPAIRS AIRLINE 203 

sisted of about six weeks. They refused to 
trust me before that to the Channel. Ban- 
daging twice a day broke what might have been 
monotony. Headaches and the smell of a drug 
kept me quiescent, if not amused. I learned to 
distinguish between sisters. There were many 
of them here, some of the variety which is 
known to the Tommy as the "Niggle-Naggles," 
a very apt name. These were the ladies who 
administered your medicine, adjusted your pil- 
lows and pointed out your sins with the air of 
a teacher addressing a naughty class. Efficient, 
omniscient, industrious creatures, they are for- 
tunately rare. For if there is one thing needed 
in a war nurse, it is a quality of humanity. 
Most of them possessed it. Bless their souls ! 

The doctor, a genial creature, had no small 
load on his hands. Possibly the heaviest item 
in his burden was a Boche officer who was not 
far from me. He was a Prussian, and like most 
of his kind, spoke very passable English. Some 
of our chaps who could walk, tried visiting him 
at first. This is customary. We know the cap- 
tives are lonely. But they met with a cool re- 
ception, so they stopped pretty soon. They 



204 THE DAREDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

thought he didn't understand what they were 
saying. The doctor, however, knew better. 
Trying to diagnose the blighter's trouble, which 
was internal, he put him a couple of questions 
about his wound. 

" That's your business to find out," was the 
very amiable answer. After this snap, he re- 
lapsed into silence. 

If I had been the doctor, I'd have been 
tempted to let him die. 

Came the news that a convoy was crossing! 
We have been hearing that at intervals for 
weeks, and each time it has raised hopes des- 
tined to be disappointed. But my turn has 
come at last. For ten days I have been allowed 
to roam the corridors, with short little spells of 
walking in the open. Now I am declared fit to 
be sent home. An orderly has already packed 
my belongings. They are even now preceding 
me to the Dieppe boat. I am to follow them 
in the morning. 

It is a glorious day, though the snow is thick 
on the ground, clogging the wheels of our slow- 
moving ambulance. 

" 'E 1' out first!" 



AUTHOR REPAIRS AIRLINE 205 

That means me, among others. I am able to 
walk aboard alone. Following ns is a long line 
of sitting cases and stretcher cases. These lat- 
ter are put to bed straight away. "We can roam 
on deck, if we so choose. God! It's a great 
thing to be alive after all, and fill your lungs 
with salt sea air ! 

Dover! We're across! Our landing is made 
quietly. Right up to the pier runs the train 
to take us to London. We're dog-tired. The 
excitement is too much after the monotony. We 
slouch in our seats, and try to read the home 
news. Presently comes Captain Bland with his 
bunch of tickets. He takes our names, and 
hands us a slip. 

" King's College all right for you?" 

"No more dangerous than the rest?" 

He laughs. We're all in great humour. 

And then Charing Cross and its cheering 
crowds ! Nurses come to collect us for our vari- 
ous hospitals. They put us in luxurious cars 
lent by private owners. Our laps are laden with 
flowers hurled at us through open windows. 

Presently my head begins to reel. A mist 



206 THE DAEEDEVIL OF THE ARMY 

comes before my eyes, but my brain is fairly 
clear. 

"You're all right," I tell myself. "You're 
home. What more do you want?" 

I slip back semi-unconscious among a pile of 
receding cushions, secure in this new sense of 
complete safety. 



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